Stop, Don't Go
by Snoe
Summary: Even Stevens Xover Buffy and Faith are living life as normal teenagers, completely and totally in love. But when love's part of the game, someone's bound to mess up. Slash BF, FRen
1. Default Chapter

Title: Stop, Don't Go.

Author: Snoe

Rating: PG-13

Feedback: Yes please…I'd like to know if anyone is reading this

Disclaimers: UPN owns the Buffy characters; the Disney Channel owns the Even Stevens characters. Anyone else not in those shows is mine.

Pairing: F/B, B/other, F/other

Summary: Buffy and Faith are living life as normal teenagers, completely and totally in love. But when love's part of the game, someone's bound to mess up. And all that is certain is heartache…and maybe a happy ending.

Buffy pulled her hair back into a ponytail while watching her girlfriend grab some books from her locker. All around them kids were busily talking, running around and being late for class. She sighed and picked up her backpack from the floor, turning to look at Faith as they started walking to their homerooms.

"God, I can't believe it's been a month already," the blonde exclaimed and watched as her girlfriend shook her head in reply.

A month meaning the time they'd spent in this new town since moving from that hell-place Sunnydale. But although the place had pretty much been horrible to live in, it had sucked to leave all their High School friends behind, especially to move to Sacramento's suburbs, a place so small and vanilla it had taken a while for Buffy to stop complaining about it. Although Faith had kept reminding her that at least they were still in California.  But the blonde had especially complained about having to switch schools in her Senior year, something colleges frowned upon…according to Buffy. But nothing could've persuaded Ms. Summers to stay in Sunnydale, after all the great job offer from this town was definitely worth putting the two girls through some torture.

"You seem to like it all the same. You're back with the popular group…," Faith responded, trying not to let the jealousy seep through. She figured that maybe Buffy would stick with her, but during school hours they barely crossed each other's way. Buffy had her clique of stuck-up bitches and macho jocks, and Faith had her own group of friends that had been deemed losers or freaks.

The blonde decided to ignore the comment and scoffed as they passed a green and gold school banner, "I still can't believe our mascot is the Wombat…who came up with that?"

Shrugging, Faith opened the door to her homeroom and turned to say bye to her girlfriend. Giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, after all she wasn't really sure whether Buffy was comfortable with their relationship around her sheep, the brunette walked inside the classroom and up to her usual seat. Dropping into the uncomfortable chair she sighed and leaned back, her eyes grazing the rows of people around her.

She looked to her right and observed the dark-haired girl sitting there for a few seconds, Ren something. Faith had seen her around a couple of times, they shared a few classes and for just a second she wondered why the girl had never once spoken to her. She was pretty, but her clothes were definitely too conservative and GAP; more someone B would hang with. The girl turned, smiling at her uncomfortably and then looked away again. Yep, Faith thought, definitely a popular.

Groaning as the teacher started roll-call she wiped all thoughts of popular snobs out of her mind.

…….

She looked at the teacher, willing the woman to not call her name for about the tenth time now. Buffy sighed in relief as someone else was paired with the loser for the project the teacher had just announced was due by next week. Although she usually did well in projects, the blonde hated being randomly paired with someone way below her social status. Hoping that the teacher would have some pity on her and put her together with her best friend Kyrie, she turned and looked at all the annoyed people that had already been paired with the partner from hell.

"Donnie Stevens…and…," the teacher scanned down the list of names in front of her and ignored all the pleading stares from girls around the room, until she finally settled on a name, "Buffy Summers."

Buffy's head snapped up and scanned the room, trying to find this infamous Donnie. She'd heard his name before, seen him hang around with some of the jocks from her clique. He was pretty well known in the school and judging by the looks she was receiving from a couple of girls in her class also well liked. The blonde turned half-way in her seat to find him and he looked into her eyes, smiling. She couldn't help but smile back and totally blocked out the teacher who was pairing up the rest of the students. He had black hair and dark eyes, was tall and muscular, definitely a nice body.

The bell rang and students left the classroom groaning in anticipation of the next educational torture session that would await them. Buffy got up and waited for Donnie to reach her before she smiled at him again. He opened the door for her and they both stepped into the busy hallway, walking next to each other to their lockers.

"So, when do you want to do that project?" he asked and the blonde thought for a second before shrugging.

"You know, why not just get it over with? How about tonight, I've got cheerleading practice until 6, but after that would be fine."

The boy stopped, pointing to his locker and lowered his backpack to the ground, "Yeah, tonight sounds good. How about my house after 6? I can start research until you get there. Do you know where I live?"

Buffy grasped her books tighter, cocking her head slightly and smiled, "You live like three houses down from us right," Donnie responded with a mumbled 'yep' and the blonde nodded, "alright then. Your house at 6 it is."

With that they both left to attend their respective classes.

…………..

She waited anxiously in front of the door for someone to open it, hoping she had the right house. After a few seconds the door opened and she stared at a goofy-looking boy with light brown hair, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and orange shorts that definitely didn't match. Buffy narrowed her eyes at him, and tried to see past the door if Donnie was anywhere around. She really didn't want to be seen with this obvious member of the loser club and fashion victim.

"Uh hi…I'm here to see Donnie, he around?" she eventually asked and expected the kid to wince or shy away at her cold tone; like any good scum would.

"Donnie? I don't know a Donnie or….ooohh you mean my brother, Donnie! Yeah, I'm sorry but he's uh…off getting a brain transplant," the boy responded, scratching his head as if he were really trying to think about it.

Buffy rolled her eyes and was just about to snap at the kid, when she heard a familiar voice from the background, "Louis! Get away from the door."

Donnie came jogging up to the door and the kid, whose name was apparently Louis, left, but not without making a face at her. The dark-haired boy smiled at her and opened the door wide enough to let her enter. Buffy grasped her bag tighter and stepped into the big house, looking around at the furniture and little trinkets standing on tables and cupboards.

"Wow, nice house," she exclaimed as he led her through the living room and up the stairs.

"Thanks. My mom says that a house represents a person and she figured that if she's got a nice, clean and family-type of home she'll be not only seen as State Senator, but also as a woman and mother-figure. Something about helping with re-elections," Donnie explained and the blonde looked at him surprised, following the boy into his room.

"Your mom's State Senator? No wonder the name Stevens sounded familiar."

Buffy looked around his room that was filled with all kinds of trophies, ranging from football to track and she whistled in appreciation, "You're one heck of an athlete, huh?"

She walked over to his desk, looking at the books he'd already gathered on their topic and dropped her bag on the floor. Donnie offered her a chair and Buffy sat with a soft smile, her eyes grazing over all the stuff he'd arranged on the shelves of his desk. She spotted a picture frame and picked it up, looking at the family picture closely.

"Just some family picture from a fishing trip we took a while ago. That's my sister, Ren and my brother Louis," Donnie explained and sat on the chair next to her.

"I didn't know she was your sister. She's a sophomore or something right?" Buffy asked, setting down the picture in its original place.

"Yeah, and well you already met Louis. And yes, he's always been that weird," the dark-haired boy smiled and pulled his chair close enough for his arm to touch hers.

Buffy chuckled, thinking back to the weird little kid that had opened the door and turned her head to the dark-haired boy's. After practice she'd taken a quick shower and changed, but now, for someone reason she was feeling extremely hot. Slipping out of her jacket she dumped it onto her book-bag and picked up one of the books on the table. Maybe they could actually get started on the project, but for some reason she wasn't feeling up to it.

"You just moved here, right?" Donnie continued the conversation and the blonde looked at him with a smile, nodding.

"Yeah, like a month ago. My mom got a job offer here so she moved us from an awful little town called Sunnydale to Sacramento," Buffy explained and the boy nodded, seemingly deep in thought about something. She wasn't sure whether she was just trying to get out of doing the project or practicing her small talk, but Donnie was a nice boy and she did actually want to talk to him.

"Don't you have a sister? I've seen you with a dark-haired girl sometimes."

Her eyes widened and Buffy looked away, thinking that maybe she should come up with something to tell him. It wasn't that she didn't love Faith or that she was ashamed of the girl, but people in her group usually tended to be a little less accepting of same-sex relationships; Buffy just didn't want to risk losing the friends she'd just worked so hard to win.

"Well, she's not really my sister. Faith and I went to High School together back in Sunnydale and got to know each other. We got pretty uh…close and when my mom found out that she didn't actually have a family she asked her to live with us. My mom became her legal guardian, so of course Faith was going to move with us," Buffy responded, hoping that this was as close to the truth she'd have to get to right now.

Donnie nodded, not questioning more about Buffy's life and they continued to work on the project. And they worked together well, finally finding some information and deciding to only glue some stuff to a poster-board and give a bad speech about what they'd learned. Buffy was gluing down a picture of some Civil War soldier, the glue leaking around the edges and sticking her fingers to the paper as well. She made a face and a frustrated sigh, having a real hard time getting the paper to stop sticking to her fingers. When she'd been struggling for almost a minute Donnie came up behind her, reaching with both his arms around her shoulders and holding the poster-board down for her fingers to finally escape. As Buffy turned her head, his face was right next to hers and she could even feel his breath caressing her skin.

"Thanks," she whispered, feeling something weird happen inside of her body and he responded by bringing a hand up to her neck, brushing the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

Buffy shuddered under his touch, the action causing her body to get even closer to his and the girl looked up into his eyes. All she could see there was pure desire, but she'd never figured it was mirrored in her own eyes. Only seconds later were his lips pressed against hers, his strong hands circling around her back to lift her off the chair. Their tongues brushed against the other, gaining access to the other's mouth. And only once during the time they were practically ripping off each other's clothes did the blonde's mind try to scream that Faith was at home waiting for her. And only once did she have to beat it down, before losing herself in him completely.

………..

Louis walked past his brother's room grumbling. That stupid snobby chick from earlier had actually thought she was better than him. Not that he really cared, but he just didn't like those people. At least his friends were like him, well sort of at least anyway.

He'd almost passed the door to Donnie's room when a strange sound made him stop. There had never been a time when Louis couldn't say he hadn't been curious, so he took a step towards the door and pressed his ear against the cold wood. And the sounds he heard left no room for doubt that something was going on. Squeezing the neck of his rubber chicken tightly the boy grinned and walked back to his own room with a chuckle. Nothing more perfect for getting back at a snobby bitch but to tell her significant other that she'd cheated with no other than his brother Donnie.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

The girl bounded down the stairs and stopped in front of the kitchen counter, looking at the woman standing behind it curiously.

"Yep?" she asked, smiling before sitting down at one of the bar stools in front of her.

"Dinner's ready, Faith," the woman said and pointed at a couple of plates that the girl readily picked up and carried into the dining room.

"Where's Buffy? She's not here yet…," the brunette said and walked back into the kitchen to grab some more stuff they'd need to eat.

"Oh, she called after practice and said she had a project to do. She was going over to someone's house, but she promised to be back before ten. It'll just be you and me for dinner," Joyce smiled at the girl she considered a daughter by now and watched as the brunette carried the rest of the stuff over to the table.

She'd found out about the girls' relationship about half a year ago, and at first she was pretty dubious about it. But she could see that Faith was a nice girl that had been dealt some very bad cards and Joyce had decided to take her in. Buffy had made a good catch and her mother hoped that her daughter wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that. Nevertheless, Joyce had vowed to herself a while ago that even if their relationship didn't work out she would never kick Faith out of the house. She liked her too much for that.

Following the brunette into the dining room Joyce hoped for a quiet and relaxing dinner. She'd really earned it.

---------------

Buffy unlocked the front door and sneaked in as quietly as possible. She didn't want to wake anyone, mainly because it was about two hours past her curfew. Closing and locking the door she tiptoed up the stairs and snuck into her room. With a relieved sigh she let her backpack slide to the floor and took off her shoes. The blonde looked around her room and then at her bed. Moonlight was reaching through the window and enabled her to see almost everything at least slightly. As she stepped closer to her bed she stopped and looked down at the person lying in between all her blankets and pillows.

Faith was tangled up in the sheets, lying on her stomach and her dark hair fell across the pillow. She was wearing plaid pajama pants and a tight, gray shirt; an outfit that always had reminded Buffy how cute her girlfriend was. But now the blonde could only swallow and slowly back away from the bed. She changed into her pj's quickly and slipped out the door towards Faith's room. Although they both had their own room, it was way better to share a bed at night than to sleep alone. Except for tonight, the blonde thought and let herself fall onto Faith's bed.

She couldn't believe what had happened. What she had done. She had slept with Donnie, a boy she hadn't even really known before today and all for…she didn't even know for what. Sure, Donnie was very attractive and nice, a charming boy with a good sense of humor and not to mention that he was very athletic. And good in bed. Rubbing a hand across her forehead Buffy wished she'd never found that one out. She'd cheated on Faith, one moment of weakness and she'd risked everything that had made her happy in the past year. But for some reason there'd been that desire burning deep inside of her and she had wanted Donnie right then and there. It'd been different from the way she felt with Faith, sure there was passion and desire with them but this had been totally different. This had been raw, not much behind it in the department of feelings. Just raw, passionate sex that really meant nothing.

But despite telling herself that, Buffy knew it did mean something. It meant that she would have to hurt the girl she loved. It meant that the whole school might find out how easy she was. It meant that her whole life could have been ruined by that one night. Though Donnie had seemed as surprised as her. He'd seemed shy even at the end, promised her that he hadn't known what had come over him either. He wasn't one of those guys that would go and brag to everyone tomorrow. Or was he?

Sighing in despair Buffy closed her eyes and hoped he wouldn't go tell anyone. Cause if Faith never found out about it, the blonde wouldn't have to worry about explaining it and hurting the girl even more.

Only slowly did the blonde girl drift off into a dreamless and restless sleep.

--------------

He sat next to his two best friends with a huge grin on his face that immediately let the two know he was up to something. Taking off his backpack he searched through it, the eyes off the other two people at the table on him and the boy finally pulled something out of his bag.

"Aha! Here it is," he smiled triumphantly, holding up the red sweater-jacket and looked at his two friends.

"Uh Louis…not to sound stupid or anything…but isn't that a little too girly for you?" his friend Tawny asked and he glanced at her quickly, confused. Realizing what she meant he looked back at the sweater and then leaned close to the two teens conspiratorially.

"This…sweater…is my plan of revenge," he muttered and the girl looked at him as if he'd actually lost his mind this time.

"Right…and Louis, how is this sweater going to revenge you?" Twitty asked in between a spoonful of green-lime jell-o.

"See that girl over there?" Louis asked, sitting down next to the two and pointed at a blonde sitting with the popular kids and laughing about some poor nerd.

"Yeah…she's one of the snobs. Buffy or something, right?" Twitty commented and received a slap on the back from his friend.

"Right, well just last night she was over at our house. Something about a project with Donnie!" the brown-haired boy exclaimed, his voice excited.

Tawny and Twitty looked at each other, shaking their heads and sighed when turning their heads back at Louis, "And how exactly is that going to get you revenge?"

"Oh…well I heard them having sex," Louis shrugged, his voice back to normal as he watched the blonde flip her hair back.

"Whoa…doesn't she have a girlfriend? The brunette girl that sometimes hangs with our more remote friends…," the sandy-haired boy replied, his jell-o now actually forgotten for the moment.

Louis nodded at them, searching the cafeteria for said brunette and eventually spotted her at a table towards the end of the room. Tightening the hold on the sweater he grinned and turned back to his friends.

"But what's the sweater got to do with everything man?" Twitty asked and both Louis and Tawny rolled their eyes.

"The bitch, Buffy or whatever, she left it. I'm gonna go give it back to her girlfriend, and make a Freudian slip about Buffy sleeping with my brother," Louis got up and nodded to his friends, ready to set out on his mission.

Before he could leave however a hand wrapped around his arm tightly and he looked down at his friend. Tawny gave him one of those looks that usually warned him when he was about to go do something stupid, "Louis, think about what you're going to do. You're not just going to get revenge on a snob…have you even thought about what this might do to her girlfriend?"

Louis looked at her for a second and shrugged with a grin, mumbling that he had thought this through and walked away from their table. His eyes were fixed on the brunette girl, so intently he didn't even realize he'd passed his sister on the way who'd already feared the worst. He usually never missed an opportunity to embarrass her, and Ren stood up, wondering what could possibly make her brother so determined he even overlooked her.

The boy walked up to the older girl, who was sitting on one of the lunch benches all the way at the end of the room, leaning over some school book. Everyone else in her group had already left, but that was fine with him. Louis walked up to her and stopped next to her, the red sweater clutched tightly in his hand. The girl looked up at him after a few seconds, her dark eyes gazing at him questioningly.

"Uh hey…Faith right?" he started and the girl nodded, leaning back some to get a better look at the boy.

"Yeah, what's up?" she responded and for a second he actually felt bad about doing this; this girl was actually talking to him like a human being, unlike some snobs whose names were not to be mentioned. Yet.

Louis held out the sweater to her, seeing that she recognized immediately whose it was and pulled his hands back, "Uh I know you live with Buffy, she would never let me get near her so I figured I'd give it back to you. She left it last night at our house…it's a wonder she didn't leave more, though," his voice was sturdy at the beginning and he chuckled at the end to put more emphasis on the whole line.

"Wha…what do you mean?" Faith asked, her voice a lot smaller than it'd been just a few seconds ago and she looked at him questioningly.

"Well the way her and my brother ripped the clothes off each other…I'm just surprised she was able to find most of them afterwards," he added, full aware that he didn't exactly know what had happened, but they just might've ripped their clothes off.

But it didn't even seem to matter to the girl who slowly got up off the bench, staring at him for a few seconds. She brushed some dark hair from her eyes, and he noticed them filling up with tears. Louis bit his lower lip, realizing that Tawny had probably been right and he was just considering telling her that he'd been kidding. But instead Faith turned, crossing her arms and slowly walked from the cafeteria into the bathroom, never even once looking back.

Staring after her he felt someone walk up behind him and turned to see his sister look at him disapprovingly. Ren narrowed her eyes and glanced to where the brunette had vanished behind the doors.

"What'd you tell her Louis?" she snapped and feeling slightly dumbfounded he took a second before looking at his sister.

"Uh that her girlfriend…that snobby girl Buffy, she slept with Donnie," Louis responded and looked away quickly, fearing one of those 'if-looks-could-kill' stares from his sister.

Not even wanting to wonder about what the hell Louis was saying about Donnie the dark-haired girl walked into the restroom as well.

--------------

Faith was leaning over the dirty sink of the disgusting bathroom. A quick, hateful glare at the few girls that had been in here and they'd left quicker than she could've thrown them out. People didn't like to get near her and she was perfectly fine with that. As long as Buffy was there with her…Buffy. She couldn't believe what that kid had told her. Sure, people lied all the time to get back at her, but this was different. Besides that, he'd had Buffy's sweater. And then she remembered that her girlfriend had opted to sleep in Faith's bed last night, offering some lame excuse about 'I didn't want to wake you'. Not to mention the way Faith could've sworn Buffy winced away this morning when she'd greeted her girlfriend with a kiss.

Sucking in deep breaths she glanced up at the mirror. She was crying for god's sake, she hadn't even as much as noticed. Her fingers were wrapped around the stained yellow porcelain so tightly she feared either one had to give eventually. She doubted she would've cared much if it had been her fingers though, pain was something she'd just been drowned in and what was a little more gonna do. Buffy had promised her so many times that she loved her, that she'd never hurt her. One thing Faith hated even more than being hurt was being lied to. And the blonde had done both, with no apparent feelings of remorse. She hadn't even as much told Faith about it, probably hoping the brunette would never find out.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that she never even heard the other person come into the bathroom. Faith was still leaning over the sink, tears streaming down her face and she was trying so hard to hold in the sobs. Suddenly a hand came to rest on her shoulder and the brunette swore that if it was Buffy trying to 'explain' things now, she wouldn't even hold back the anger. But as Faith turned her head and looked at the girl standing next to her with concern etched on her face, she almost raised an eyebrow in surprise. It was the same girl from her homeroom, with a name she still wasn't able to really remember. She'd pegged the girl to be a snob, a popular bitch who didn't care about anyone else, but the dark-haired girl was standing in front of her, seeming very shy but still worried.

"Hey…," the girl spoke softly, looking at Faith with deep brown eyes.

Faith stood, pulling away from the sink and looked at the brunette in front of her. She was a little bit taller than the girl, but not by much. They looked into each other's eyes and Faith felt the tears threaten to spill over again. She tried to take a deep breath but it didn't help and the tears ran down her cheeks once again.

"Are you okay?" the girl asked, her hand squeezing Faith's arm gently as she watched the crying brunette.

For a second she considered mumbling that she was fine, but it just wouldn't come out. Instead Faith shook her head and bit her lip, forcing the tears to stop that still wouldn't listen. The girl's hand was still squeezing her arm, but for once Faith didn't mind the contact.

"If my brother said or did something to upset you, I'm real sorry. He's an idiot, he doesn't know what he's doing," the brunette girl's voice was gentle and Faith looked at her slightly confused.

"Your…brother?" she managed to choke out, wiping some of the tears away with the sleeve of her shirt.

"Louis…the annoying kid that was talking to you."

"Oh," Faith responded, thinking for a second. All this 'my brother/my sister' crap was confusing the hell out of her.

"Do you mind if I ask what he told you to make you so upset?" she asked, although Louis had kind of mentioned what he'd told the brunette.

Faith hesitated, she wasn't one to spill her guts to just anyone. Or she hadn't been like that, ever since being with Buffy she'd almost gotten soft. Like she was even willing to open up to other people. Thinking of Buffy, and then thinking of the girl she loved sleeping with some jock, brought the tears back to the surface.

"He…he said that his brother, your brother too I guess,…he slept…he slept with my girlfriend," Faith whispered but eventually her voice broke and she started sobbing for the first time since she'd found out.

And to her surprise two slender arms wrapped around her and the girl she'd never talked to let her sob into her shoulder. Faith grasped the fabric of the girl's shirt tightly, feeling like she'd totally lost control over her body as she just continued crying. And the girl didn't even push her away once her sobs had slowed and finally stopped at all. Faith pulled back, wiping her eyes and offered a small smile to the girl.

"Your…your name's Ren, right?" Faith asked softly, finally thinking that she remembered the girl's name. When the brunette girl nodded Faith smiled at her sincerely, "Well then, thanks Ren. For actually worrying whether I was alright, no one has really ever done that."

Ren smiled back and brushed some dark hair behind her ear before looking back at the girl, "Well, I don't like to see people hurt, especially not if it might've been my brother who caused you pain. So, if you ever need someone to just talk to, you know my name."

Nodding, the taller girl stepped up to Ren and gave her a quick hug, whispering 'thanks' into the girl's ear and walked towards the door. She turned around to look at the brunette and smiled again, "I think I'm gonna go home, I'm really not in the mood for school. Thanks again…and if you ever need something, my name's Faith."

"Okay Faith, thanks. And good luck with your…girlfriend," Ren mumbled after the girl as she vanished out the bathroom doors.

Walking out of the restroom herself, Ren found Louis still standing in the same spot as before and she decided to blackmail him into a little more information.

------------------------

Buffy opened the door and stepped into the house with a relieved sigh. School had just been way too much stress. All that talk about SAT's and applications was really getting to her. She took off her shoes and jacket, walking the few steps into the living room to see her mom and Faith sitting on the sofa. But as soon as Buffy entered the room Faith got up and vanished upstairs before the blonde even had a chance to ask what was going on.

The girl walked up to her mom, who was still sitting on the couch and gave her a quizzical look, "What's up with Faith?"

Joyce Summers looked up at her daughter, a sigh on her lips that she never uttered and took a deep breath. She'd never expected her daughter to do this to anyone, let alone Faith. Let alone have a one night stand with some boy that couldn't've mattered to her. But instead Joyce decided not to mention anything, this was definitely between Faith and Buffy and she had no intentions of getting in the middle.

"I picked her up from school early, she said she wasn't feeling well. Maybe you should go talk to her," Joyce offered and stood up as well to walk into the kitchen. After the three hours she'd just gone through trying to calm down Faith she truly deserved some coffee to give her back some of her energy.

Buffy shrugged and followed her girlfriend upstairs, walking up to Faith's closed door. She knocked quietly and barely heard the brunette telling her to come in, but Buffy opened the door and stepped inside the room to see her girlfriend lying on her bed. Faith was staring up at the ceiling, her arms crossed behind her head and the blonde walked up to her.

"Mom said you weren't feeling alright. What's wrong babe?" she asked softly and sat on the edge of the bed, resting her hand on the brunette's thigh.

They sat in silence for a few minutes until Faith spoke up, her eyes never once leaving the ceiling, "Buffy…do you love me?"

The blonde stopped any thinking she'd been doing and stared at the girl lying in front of her, "Of course I love you, why would you even need to ask?"

Faith shifted slightly, seeming to consider something and then she continued, still staring at the ceiling, "So then you wouldn't wanna lie to me, right?"

Buffy swallowed, not knowing where this was going and she lifted her hand from Faith's thigh to nervously play with her fingers, "No, I wouldn't. Where's this going Faith?"

Finally the brunette looked down, her gaze trained on Buffy and she locked her eyes with the blonde's, "So then please don't lie to me when I ask if you cheated on me."

The blonde's eyes widened and she opened her mouth, ready to say anything but the pleading look she was receiving from her girlfriend made her stop. Looking down at her hands she closed her eyes for a second, before mumbling a weak apology, "I'm sorry Faith. I never meant for it to happen."

As she looked up she saw the brunette's eyes were closed, but tears were escaping anyway and running down the sides of her face. She'd never wanted so desperately to wipe them away, but Buffy didn't move.

"I trusted you Buffy," the brunette spat, her words tearing at Buffy's heart and she felt her own tears starting to fall.

"Faith…," the blonde tried and reached out for her girlfriend but Faith moved away from her, curling up against the wall with her back to Buffy.

Closing her eyes again Buffy stood up and didn't even bother to brush the tears away as she walked towards the door. She turned, looked at the brunette girl who was sobbing on the bed and felt her heart break. Never in a million years had she wanted to do this.

"I love you Faith, no matter what. Is there any way things can ever be right between us?" she whispered, knowing her voice wouldn't play along if she tried to speak out-loud.

"I don't know Buffy, I really don't know. I can't be with you when it hurts this much…maybe I need time. I just don't know," Faith's voice broke a couple of times during the sentence and Buffy really wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around her girlfriend…ex-girlfriend she corrected herself and took a deep breath.

She nodded, knowing Faith couldn't see but it didn't really matter. Opening the door Buffy left the room quietly and slowly walked over to her own. When she'd shut herself in her room she started sobbing as well.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

"God, why can't they make Geometry so anyone can actually understand it!" Faith exclaimed and sunk back in her chair with a groan. She threw her pencil at the math-book with an evil glare and in response it only bounced off, landing on the floor.

The brunette groaned again and rolled her eyes, leaning over to try and reach her pencil over the desk. But as she turned her head she met a pair of brown eyes, staring at them confused for a few seconds. Looking down she saw the owner of the eyes holding out her pencil to her, and she took it with a smile.

"Thanks, Ren," she grinned and looked at the girl, storing the pencil behind her ear so not to lose it again.

"No prob. And if you uh…need help with this stuff, I'd be more than willing to help out a friend," the brunette girl smiled back, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear and watched Faith.

Leaning into her chair, Faith raised an eyebrow and chuckled softly, "Yeah? Well I might just take you up on that offer."

Ren smiled and turned back to her own book before the teacher caught them talking. But she was still thinking about what she'd just done; sure, she was Ren, she helped people out. Though she couldn't deny that there was definitely something different about Faith, something none of her friends had. It was almost as if the girl was radiating energy and adventure, definitely different from anyone Ren had ever hung out with. Sighing, Ren hoped she hadn't made a mistake offering her help, but the girl did seem nice enough.

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"…okay, so you know that's a right angle and you know that one's 68 degrees…now you can figure out how big the third one is."

"Uh…what?"

"Adding…a triangle's angles always add up to 180 degrees…See?" the girl explained, drawing out the calculations on a piece of paper for the other girl to see.

"I think I…get it!" Faith exclaimed and let herself fall backwards onto the bed where she'd been sitting with a groan. "I am so done!"

Ren turned her head to look at the other girl, then glancing at the book in her lap, "But we only did three chapters."

Faith laughed and looked up at the brunette, shaking her head with a sigh, "Oh Ren…," she started, sitting up and wrapping an arm around the girl's shoulders to look at her, "you need to learn to find the fun a little."

"Ooh?" the brunette smiled nervously, she wasn't sure she really wanted to know what fun meant to the other girl.

Chuckling, Faith gently took the book from the brunette's grip and shut it, then looked into her eyes seriously, "Come on, we just need to get away from this studying. Not that I don't like it, I mean I don't like studying, although ever since you're helping me I even got a B in math…but…never mind. All I'm saying is…why don't we go to a movie, just you and me. Kind of as a thank you for helping me with school…and I'll even let you pick."

Faith wriggled her eyebrows at the last part and Ren couldn't help but laugh. What Faith was saying did sound like fun, a movie wasn't too dangerous or adventurous after all. And over the past two weeks that they'd been studying together she'd actually felt a little bit more careless than she had before. Faith was definitely a mood-lifter and no matter what her friends had maybe said about the girl, Faith was nice and sweet, as she'd just proven.

"Alright, I guess," she finally answered, looking away at Faith's triumphant smile, but couldn't help not to smile back as the brunette bounced on the bed excitedly.

And this time she didn't even wonder whether she'd just made a mistake, because Ren knew she hadn't. Faith was fun, and if people couldn't deal with that, then screw them. She sighed and let herself fall backwards on her bed like the other girl had done just a few minutes ago, feeling another body hit the mattress next to her.

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She practically thundered down the stairs, barely missing the sofa as she went to get her shoes. Faith turned around in a complete circle to see where the others were and saw some movement in the kitchen. Slipping on her shoes while trying to make her way into the kitchen she almost fell, but managed to make it into the room in one piece.

"Mom?" she asked, walking up to the counter to see the woman standing behind an opened fridge door. Joyce Summers had asked her, no she had insisted, Faith call her mom ever since they moved and Faith had happily obliged.

"Yes, Faith?"

"I'm going to the movies later, with a friend. Is it okay if I stay out a little later than ten?"

Joyce closed the fridge and set a small container on the counter, looking at Faith with that look on her face. The look that meant she was thinking of anything to stop the girl from getting in trouble and that meant playing 20 questions.

"Well, who's this friend?" Joyce asked, and looked at the brunette, then at Buffy who was sitting on one of the barstools chewing on an apple. She knew that the two girls' relationship was strained right now, and they might never even get back together, but she hoped they could at least be friends. Act a little more civilized than not-speaking. Buffy swiveled the chair around so she was halfway facing Faith and halfway looking at her mom, her elbows resting on the counter behind her.

"She's the one that's been helping me with math," Faith responded and picked up an apple out of the bowl on the counter, polishing it with the sleeve of her jacket.

"I don't know Faith…you know I don't like you girls just going off with friends I haven't met," Joyce responded, unsure of whether it was a wise idea to let the girl go.

"But I've been going over to her house for the past two weeks. And you let me and didn't know her," the brunette exclaimed, knowing that she was getting desperate to make bad arguments.

"Well that was for school. And besides, I haven't even met this girl's parents, I'd like to know what they're like."

Faith grinned and bit into her apple, at least she had a trump card for this one, "I think you know her mom. She's a Senator of California."

The older woman turned to look at Faith a little surprised, and both of them missed Buffy nearly choking on her apple. The blonde girl sucked in her breath, trying to swallow the piece of fruit lodged in her throat and looked at the younger girl. She wasn't sure if Faith knew who she'd cheated with, but if she did, then this might just be to get back at Buffy. Narrowing her eyes she got up and walked into the living room to watch TV. She couldn't let Faith think she was getting to her.

"I still don't know Faith," Joyce shook her head, but upon seeing the pleading look in the girl's eyes she sighed. It would probably do Faith some good to get out of the house, and the girl she was going with seemed to come from a respective house, not to mention she was an intelligent and helpful girl; very different from the groups Faith used to hang with.

"Alright…but I want you home by 11. No later, you understand me?" the woman stated, using her motherly face to underline the last point but Faith was already grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"Thanks mom, I promise I'll be back on time!" the brunette called out as she was walking out the kitchen and out of the house.

Joyce stood in the kitchen and could only smile.

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"I must admit," the brunette grinned as they walked out of the crowded theater, "I was a little scared at first about seeing a romance movie…but it didn't totally suck."

Ren turned to look at her and rolled her eyes, then punched her lightly in the arm, "You know you liked it. Nothing wrong with romance, Faith."

"But there's also nothing wrong with some action and good ass-kicking!" the taller girl replied and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Thinking of something else she turned to look at Ren sheepishly, before adding, "'Sides, I would know. I'm older!"

Raising an eyebrow the other girl laughed at her and gave her a slight shove by bumping into Faith. The taller brunette had been joking about being older ever since they'd talked about their birthdays and found out that Faith was a week older than Ren. Which was really not being older in Ren's eyes, but Faith wasn't going to let her live it down.

"So, what does the wise, older person suggest we do now?" the younger girl replied and watched as Faith took a quick glance at her watch, then threw her a charming smile.

"How 'bout we grab something to eat? I'm starving, and we got over an hour until curfew."

Smiling back at the taller girl Ren nodded and followed Faith towards the plaza near the theater with countless restaurants located in it. Out of habit Faith wrapped an arm around the other girl's shoulders, but this time Ren enjoyed the gesture. Smiling at the other girl, they walked into the nearest restaurant.

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She brushed some blonde hair out of her eyes and rested her chin on her hand. Her eyes were wandering, but barely. For the past half hour probably she'd been staring off at the table in the far back. She'd been watching Faith, the way the brunette laughed, the way she brushed the occasional strand of hair out of her eyes, the way she grinned after making some crude joke that she received only groans for. Buffy sighed and wondered how she could've been so blind; how she could've thrown that away for…nothing. She really had nothing, except for some air-headed friends that couldn't think past boys and who broke a nail today.

"Buffy! Earth to Buffy," came her friend's voice from her side and the blonde snapped out of her daze, looking at Kyrie.

"Huh?" she mumbled, knowing that probably hadn't been the brightest thing to say.

"Gosh, Buffy, what's with you and the Geek-show? You've been staring over there for like half an hour…what's up? Some cute guy you're hiding from us?" the girl said, then started giggling along with the four other girls at their table.

Buffy turned back to face them and smiled as well, "Nah, I was just thinking about stuff. Sorry guys, what's up?"

As soon as the question left her mouth Jaycee had her eyes wide open and was leaning closer to her, as if they were conspiring over something, "Well if you hadn't been preoccupied for the last half hour you would've noticed Donnie Stevens totally checking you out! Oh my god, he's such a major hottie!"

Buffy cocked her head to look at the group of jocks sitting at the table next to them. They were loudly discussing the football game against the rival school this Friday and the blonde watched Donnie for a few seconds. Sure, he was cute, after all she'd thought so almost three weeks ago when she'd slept with him. Suddenly he turned his head and caught her eyes, smiling at her before turning back to his buddies.

The blonde blushed, looking away and she heard someone snicker from her side. She looked at Kyrie who was shaking her head, giggling along with the other girls about 'Buffy crushing on Donnie'.

"You totally want him Buff!" Jaycee exclaimed and Buffy knew that denying wouldn't make them believe either. She didn't know if she had a crush on Donnie, but she really didn't think so. Not that the three girls would believe it though.

But before she could say anything incriminating, she was saved by a huge crash and loud clatter coming from the side. Everyone turned their heads and looked at the brown-haired boy who slowly stood up from the floor, his Hawaiian shirt stained with tomato sauce and he grinned, raising his hands as a few people started clapping.

"Thank you, thank you. I'll be here through Friday!"

Buffy rolled her eyes as she recognized Donnie's younger brother, watching as the kid picked up his tray from the floor and walked out of cafeteria as if he hadn't just made a total fool out of himself. Shaking her head the blonde turned her attention back to her group, but from the corner of her eyes she saw something that made her stomach turn in jealousy. Faith was walking towards the doors of the cafeteria, her backpack slung across her shoulder and next to her was the brunette girl she'd been hanging out with for a while now. Donnie's sister, Buffy remembered, Ren or some stupid name like that. But that wasn't even what pissed her off, she'd almost gotten used to seeing Faith with the girl. However, when the girl struggled with her heap of books she was holding Faith held out her hands, offering to take the books, at least that's what it looked like to Buffy since she couldn't really hear them. The two brunettes seemed to argue for a few seconds, until Faith grabbed the books out of Ren's arms and walked away with a confident smirk. Buffy watched as the shorter girl rolled her eyes before following Faith, resting a hand on the other girl's shoulder as they both walked out of the cafeteria.

Looking away, Buffy felt close to tears at the thought that she might've lost Faith…to a brainiac nonetheless. Not that it wasn't her own damn fault. She sighed and took a couple of deep breaths, looking at her friends again with a fake smile.

"So Buff, you going to the game on Friday?"

She slowly turned to look at Kyrie, staring blankly at the girl for a few seconds before nodding, "Yeah, I think I just might."

"And you know Donnie's gonna be there," Jaycee added with a wink and grinned as Buffy only shook her head.

Though she really didn't think it'd be a bad idea to get out, hang with some friends for a while and watch a couple of studly guys beat the crap out of each other.

Tell me what you think…should I continue?


	4. Chapter 4

Part 4

"Mom, can I get a ride to school?" Faith yelled, coming down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Joyce Summers looked up at the brunette and raised an eyebrow, "School? Faith, are you feeling okay? You do know it's a Friday night, right?"

Smirking, Faith rolled her eyes and walked up to the sofa where the woman was sitting. She shrugged, hearing Buffy coming down the stairs behind her and only quickly turned to look, then directed her attention back to her mom.

"The football game, it's tonight. I really wanna go," the brunette pleaded, feeling Buffy walk past the living room to grab her jacket.

"Well, Buffy's going too, right? I'm sure you can go with her," Joyce responded and turned a page of the newspaper in her lap.

The blonde, upon hearing her name, stepped up next to Faith and looked at her mom while slipping her arms into a GAP jacket, "But mom...I'm going with my friends. I'm not even driving and I can't just ask them to take her."

Looking up Joyce threw her daughter a look and started to say something that was probably going to piss them both off in the long-run, but Faith interrupted, "Yeah, and besides I really don't wanna spend my night with a whole bunch of airheads."

This time it was Faith that received the glare, but Joyce stood up with a sigh, waving at Buffy to go ahead and leave. The brunette threw her a grateful smile and Joyce looked her up and down for a few seconds. Faith was wearing green draw-string pants that looked to Joyce like the military could've put them to good use, a tight, black spaghetti-strap top and black combat boots. Shaking her head, the woman grabbed her jacket, searching for her car keys and threw a glance at Faith as they were about to leave the house.

"Faith, please wear at least a jacket. It's cold outside and I don't want you getting sick."

Grumbling, the brunette grabbed her Sunnydale High Letterman jacket from the coat rack and followed the older woman outside into the cold evening air.

"You call this cold! You should spend a whole winter on the streets in Boston, now that's what I call cold," the brunette exclaimed as she jumped down the steps in front of the house and practically bounced towards the car.

Shaking her head once again, Joyce decided to ignore the comment and got into the car. Faith was already breathing into the air, watching her breath condense with a child-like expression on her face, but the older woman couldn't have been happier to turn on the heater once they were on the road.

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She leaned back, resting her hands on cold metal of the bleachers and took a look around. There were a lot of people considering this was just a High School football game, one of the many High School's in Sacramento on top of that. There was a lot of students, a lot of girls drooling over the team apparently, a couple of guys and even some parents that were probably here to watch their sons play. Sighing, she whipped her hair back, bringing her hands to her face and breathing at them in hope of warming them up just a little.

It was only the end of the first quarter and Buffy was starting to get slightly bored. There hadn't been any major excitement so far, and all her best friend seemed to be doing was constantly pointing out Donnie on the field. Number 43, Buffy didn't think Kyrie was ever gonna let her forget. She sighed again and let her eyes study the crowd; consciously she knew she was looking for Faith but she didn't actually know why. Their relationship had been more than strained these past three weeks; Faith hadn't even been home that often. And the only times she had been home Faith was either in her room doing homework and studying, something that Buffy still found slightly disconcerting, or watching TV with her mom. She missed the ease that had always been between them, even when they'd just been friends and Buffy hoped they could at least get back to that, if not more.

And then she did spot Faith, almost like the whole superstitious thing that as soon as you stop looking you'll find what you were looking for. The brunette was leaning back on her hands that were grabbing the back of the metal-bench and she was laughing; that throaty laughter that came straight from her heart and Buffy shuddered. She shuddered because the laughter wasn't for her or because of her. Watching her ex-girlfriend the blonde couldn't help but also watch the brunette girl next to her, who was glaring at Faith, but then burst out laughing as well. The two girls seemed to actually be enjoying themselves, despite the boring game and Buffy had a feeling it was 'cause they were in each other's company.

Closing her eyes, she shook her head and looked back at the football field. The players were running back onto the field to get into their positions and she could feel Kyrie shaking her arm from her right, exclaiming "Look! There's Donnie!" Rolling her eyes Buffy felt that maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to go to the game. She hoped that they'd have more fun afterwards when, as Kyrie had explained it, a couple of guys from the team were going to take them out for a victory dinner. And Buffy had a very uncomfortable feeling that Donnie was going to be there. Sighing for the third time in five minutes she turned her head as Jaycee, Missy and Christy came back from their excursion to get drinks and sat down next to them. 'Let the fun begin' Buffy thought and took the drink Missy was offering her with a smile.

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"...I can't believe he traded you for a game card! That's too funny," Faith was still laughing, ignoring the glares she was receiving from the girl next to her.

"He didn't trade me," Ren interjected, rolling her eyes as the older girl looked at her, then started laughing again.

"No, he had you go on a date with a total freakazoid," the brunette grinned, looking at Ren who glared at her, but couldn't keep it up and started laughing as well.

"Yeah, Louis really makes me want to hurt him sometimes," Ren responded and sighed, watching as Faith turned her head to look at the field where the game was already continuing.

"Well, if my brother ever decided to do that to me...," the taller girl started, but Ren cut her off with a confused glance.

"You got a brother?"

Faith looked back at her and grinned, shaking her head, "Well, no...but if I did!"

Ren smiled back, watching the game for a few seconds and winced as a player took an extremely hard tackle. She looked around her, seeing a couple of familiar faces, along with a lot of strangers. People were wrapped in coats and hats; a cold front had just moved in and everyone seemed to get ready for winter. And now with the sun gone it was getting even colder, her breath condensing in the air before her and Ren rubbed her hands together to warm them up. She should've listened to her mom when she had told her to take a jacket, the sweater-jacket she had decided on was definitely not keeping her warm.

"Girl, don't tell me you're cold!"

She snapped her head over to look at Faith, who was grinning at her like a fool, sitting there wrapped in a comfy, warm-looking letterman jacket. Ren raised an eyebrow, turning to look at the girl completely before speaking, "Yes, I'm cold. And if you're gonna tell me you're not, then may I remind you of the jacket you're wearing?"

Faith looked down at herself, as if she didn't even remember wearing a jacket, then slipped her arms out of the sleeves with a shrug. She pulled off the jacket and handed it to Ren with a smile, feeling the cold air caress her bare skin. Seeing the skeptical look Ren was giving her she urged the girl to take the warm jacket, eventually throwing the brunette a pleading look.

"Just take it, I really don't need it. I wouldn't even have taken it if my mom hadn't made me. I'm Boston-grown, I have a thick skin," she grinned and shrugged, pushing the jacket at Ren who reluctantly took it.

The younger girl pulled on the jacket and immediately felt warmth settle around her body, and somehow Ren had a feeling that it being Faith's jacket only added to it. She looked at the other girl who actually seemed intent on watching the game for once, her eyes grazing Faith's bare arms, the way the brunette's hair swept around her shoulders that were only covered by two black spaghetti straps. Snapping herself out of her thoughts, Ren turned her head back to the game field.

She couldn't believe she'd just looked at Faith's body like that, they were just friends. Glancing over quickly Ren studied the girl's dark features, the deep brown eyes and lips that had actually been left make-up-less tonight, and once again she was sunken deep in her thoughts.

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Buffy looked at the boy sitting across from her and burst out laughing, almost spewing milkshake all over the table. Kyrie was elbowing her in the ribs and she threw a look at the other girl, and they both started laughing. Yeah, she thought, this was definitely turning out to be a good night. After the game had ended five of the players had met them outside the locker rooms and taken them to this popular hang-out. It was somewhere along a burger-shack, a lot of kids from their school where here to hang out, but out of all of them their group was definitely the most popular and therefore they were pretty much being left alone. And as Buffy had suspected Donnie had been one of the guys, of course, but she didn't seem to mind it as much anymore.

She turned her head as a kid ran past the rows of tables screaming and sighed as she realized who it was. Throwing a quick, sympathetic glance at Donnie, she watched as his little brother ran to the arcade section of the place, barely dodging a waitress with a tray full of food. Sometimes she wondered who let kids like him into places like these. Glancing at the door she was just about to go back to her conversation with the guy named Chad, when she saw Faith walking up to the place, looking as hot as ever.

Buffy watched the brunette's familiar sway, and Faith walked into the diner, hands in her pockets and looked around before turning. Behind her the blonde could see that Ren-chick and a weird-looking blonde she thought she'd seen around school once or twice. They made their way over to a booth near Buffy and her clique and as they got closer the blonde recognized the shorter brunette wearing Faith's jacket. The letterman jacket Faith had gotten from Sunnydale High and always bragged about since she'd been the only freshman on the Varsity soccer team.

Swallowing hard, Buffy watched them for a few seconds, telling herself she had to breathe. In High School wearing someone else's letterman jacket usually only meant one thing...you were going out with them, and Buffy so desperately did not want that to be true. This was getting a little bit too much as far as revenge plans went...even for what she'd done. Buffy glared down into her milkshake so she didn't have to see the two girls, knowing that if she did, she might do something out of anger that she'd probably regret eventually.

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The air in the burger shack was sticky, humid almost with the heat of teenage bodies crammed inside to escape the biting cold. And with the bodies came the noise: a couple of kids cheering on someone breaking a video game record, a group of jocks shouting at each other about tonight's tackles to impress their dates, waitresses yelling orders at the cooks who added their own clinking of pots and pans.

She sighed, shrugging out of the jacket that had definitely gotten too warm for inside the restaurant and looked at the girl sitting across from her. Her best friend Ruby was talking about a new boy band with the excitement of a five-year old locked in a candy store, but Ren couldn't have cared less. Sure, it had been her who'd asked the blonde to come along after they'd seen her at the game, but now she was wondering just why she had done it. Remembering correctly, Ren could've sworn Ruby just about invited herself and the brunette didn't feel as bad about wishing to be alone, but she couldn't help and hope Ruby would leave.

Suddenly someone nudged her side and she looked to her left, staring into a set of gorgeous brown eyes that held her gaze with a twinkle in them. Snapping out of her daze Ren raised an eyebrow and mouthed 'what?' to Faith who was smirking relentlessly. Her eyes followed Faith's outstretched finger, and it took Ren a few seconds to realize what it was that was on the brunette's plate. Ren started laughing as she saw the fry-tower with a lettuce leaf roof and ketchup pool; apparently Faith was as bored as her. She was just about to make a quiet comment about the food-art, when someone else sat down at their table and, not to their dismay, interrupted Ruby.

"Uh...hey guys," the person mumbled and Ren stared at her brother skeptically. Louis was never up to any good, he'd basically never done a good thing in his life. 'That's not true', she reminded herself...he had been the one that caused her to meet Faith, however coincidental that might've been.

"Louis," she sighed and looked at the boy who was fiddling with the saltshaker, "what do you want?"

He looked up, a goofy grin on his face and he pulled his hands away, wiping them on his shorts, then looked at Faith, "I uh...want to talk to Faith. It won't take long I promise."

Ren threw him a wary look and turned her attention to the drink in front of her, suddenly very interested in the ice floating around in her cup. Louis cleared his throat and she knew Faith was trying to hold back a chuckle, Ren didn't even know how she knew; it was more like an intuition.

"I just...wanted to say that I'm real sorry for telling you about my brother and uh...your girlfriend, you know, getting you all upset and stuff. It wasn't right and I'm sorry," the brown-haired boy said, looking up at the taller brunette with an almost questioning look on his face.

This time face couldn't keep in her chuckle and she smiled, shaking her head, "Don't worry about it, L. It was probably for the better anyway, else I don't think I ever would've found out."

"So, we're cool?" Louis asked, cocking his head slightly as his hands grabbed the saltshaker once again.

"Yeah, five by five," Faith laughed upon seeing the confused looks she was getting, then nodded, "we're cool."

"Good...'cause I'm glad my sister's finally found some cool friends," he said and stood up as he saw the look his sister was throwing at him, then looked at Ruby with a crooked smile, "Oh...no offense to you Ruby." And before anyone else had a chance to say anything he was gone.

Ren shook her head in despair, Louis was going to drive her insane one day, but Faith was still grinning, "You know, I kinda like him."

The look she received almost made Faith want to take back that statement. Almost.

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The girl looked up and outside her window to glance at the half-moon almost hidden behind a tree. Sighing, she laid her head back onto her pillow, not even bothering to close her eyes to get some sleep. She'd been lying in her bed for what seemed like hours, trying to fall asleep. But it seemed hopeless; her mind constantly reminded her of what she'd seen tonight and what she'd probably lost.

Buffy turned onto her back and stared up at the shadowy ceiling. The rest of the evening she had spent flirting with anyone within her reach, mostly the guys at their table, though. She knew why she'd done it, too, it was a 'two-can-play-that-game' type of thing; the whole time she'd hoped Faith would see and be extremely jealous. But it hadn't quite worked out that way; Faith hadn't even seen her and all Buffy had gained was the knowledge that teenage guys were about the horniest beings on the planet.

Sighing, she thought of what had happened between them. There was no way Faith could've just dumped her and not cared. Buffy had expected this to be the kind of break-up where you just take it slow for a few days and then get back together. Almost every good couple in High School had at least one of those, it would've been their first and all. But no, that no-good, overzealous, in no way pretty nerd had to come between her plan. Faith wasn't supposed to ogle someone else, she was supposed to forgive and forget so they could get back together.

A low growl rose from the blonde's throat and she thought about who she was. Buffy was a popular girl, liked, or at least admired, by pretty much the whole student body, but being popular also meant you had learned to be a bitch. And she definitely knew how to defend her turf. The blonde could barely believe that she had almost let Faith slip through her hands for a lack of fighting, but now she was ready to declare war. She wasn't going to win Faith back by moping around and letting that little bitch move in on her territory. No, she, Buffy Summers, was going to bring out the worst in herself and fight for her woman.

Chuckling at that quietly she finally closed her eyes and drifted off to a very relaxing sleep.

More to come... 


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks so much for the reviews guys, I didn't think anyone was actually reading this!

**Part 5  
  
**

"Hey, you," she yelled across the almost empty hallway and took the few remaining steps towards the girl, then slammed the opened locker shut with her left hand. If there had been any curious students wanting to stay around when she'd first uttered the words, they were long gone by now after having seen the last gesture.

"Uh…hey," the brunette girl replied, pulling the straps of her backpack across her shoulders and looked at the slightly shorter blonde before her.

"Listen, bitch, I just wanna make a few things clear. First of all, I think it's just great that you want to experiment and all, but don't mess with me in the process; which basically means 'don't get in my way', and you very obviously are. Second of all, Faith is my girlfriend and I don't want you around her. You got me, or do I need to repeat myself, Rem?"

The brunette stared at her, trying to contain the shock of being basically harassed by one of the most popular girls at the school and grabbed the straps of her backpack tightly, "I…I didn't know that…I thought you guys broke up…a…and anyway I'm sure Faith knows perfectly well who she wants to be around with…and who not."

Suddenly the blonde's hand snapped forward, pushing the other girl harshly into the lockers and Buffy got as close to the younger girl's face as physically possible without it being considered sexual contact. Her hand wrapped around the fabric of Ren's shirt and pulled her up a little, giving her a look that would've brought the dead back to life, "Don't mess with me, little one. You are nothing compared to me; you aren't popular or pretty or anywhere near what Faith wants. Save yourself some trouble and stay away from her, because if I ever see you near her again…you don't wanna know what I will do to you. Faith is mine, and no one, no one is going to get into my way…especially not some geeky little whore like you."

Buffy gave the brunette another small shove, then turned around and walked down the empty hallway as if nothing had happened. The brunette looked after her, taking a few cautious steps away from the lockers and smoothed out her shirt. She walked back to her locker and opened it to get the books she needed for the study session she was already late for. Silence was choking her almost, there was not a single sound to be heard in the hallway now, except for the rhythmic ticking of the broken clock up on the wall and her hitched breaths.

Ren stopped and leaned her head against her hand, resting her elbow on the bottom of her locker and tried to fight the tears. There was no good reason for this happening, it just wasn't fair. Faith was definitely one of the greatest people she knew and now some blonde bitch wanted to have her way with things just because she was popular and pretty. The brunette considered going home for a second, but then decided against it. She wasn't going to let it get to her and she hoped she could actually follow through with that.

Sighing, Ren put the last of the books into her backpack and closed her locker. She wiped away the tears that had almost spilled from her eyes and walked towards the library. But there was no bounce in her step like usual.

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The girl looked up as the library doors opened and smiled as she saw her friend walk in, looking around the room. Approaching the table slowly the brunette smiled softly as she finally sat down in a chair next to Faith and pulled out a couple of books from her backpack. She was barely looking at the taller girl next to her, ignoring the questioning stare she was being thrown by her friend.

"Uh…Ren?" Faith finally asked, leaning over far enough into the brunette's visual field to not be overlooked again.

"Yes?" Ren asked, her voice small and nervous, something that the other girl immediately noticed and made her worry slightly.

"What's wrong?"

Looking down at her book, Ren brushed a strand of dark hair from her face and raised her eyes to meet soft brown ones. She considered telling Faith about what had just happened in the hallway, but her heart was telling her not to. As much as Ren disliked Buffy, she also knew that Faith still had some sort of feelings for her and she wasn't about to hurt her friend. So instead the younger girl decided to forget about the threat and smiled at Faith as sweetly as she could muster, shaking her head.

"Nothing…just a little stressed about school. Ready to do Chem?"

Faith gave her another suspicious look but then leaned back and grabbed her own Chemistry book, her eyes never leaving Ren's. The shorter brunette ran a hand through her hair and looked down at the book, hoping that at least science would be able to take her mind off what was going on.

"Uh…the chemical formula for…table salt?" Her voice was back to normal, but she was nowhere near having her complete attention focused on studying. They'd been studying together for probably four weeks and not once had she been this confused and disoriented. Suddenly Ren felt a tap on her shoulder and turned her head to look at the face of a pouting brunette.

"I knew the answer and where were you?" Faith pouted, cocking her head to watch as the other girl sighed, rubbing a hand across her eyes and then smiled.

"Maybe Chemistry isn't my thing today…how about we start with the math homework?" the younger girl mumbled, glad that Faith seemed to be accepting her bad excuses.

Ren stared down at her math-book and paper lying in front of her, then looked through her backpack for her favorite pen. She could feel Faith's eyes on her, watching her as she started rummaging through all little pockets in her pack, trying to find that pen. Scoffing, Ren turned back to her friend and shook her head…the day had just hit an all time low.

"What's up?" Faith asked, twirling a pencil with a chewed end in one hand, leaning her chin on the other.

"I lost my pen," Ren said softly, feeling close to whining and she definitely didn't want to make a scene in the school library.

"Well…you can borrow one of mine," the older brunette shrugged and watched as Ren's shoulders slumped before she rested her head in her hands.

"It was my favorite. It was my good-luck pen…I can't believe I lost it," Ren mumbled and looked at Faith after a while, whose eyes were narrowed.

"Hey, you don't need a good-luck pen to be great, it's just a pen…Come on, how about we ditch this studying thing and go get some ice cream?" the taller brunette smiled and stood up, holding out her hand to Ren who reluctantly took it.

The two girls packed up and left the library, Ren hoping that maybe her day would get a little bit better after this. After all, Faith always seemed to have the ability to cheer her up.

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Faith dropped onto her bed with a groan. She was way beyond tired and definitely needed to catch up on sleep. Rolling over onto her stomach the brunette stared down at the Chem book in front of her; they had a test tomorrow and she really wasn't getting it. She'd been hoping that Ren could explain some of the confusing stuff, but after the little scene in the library Faith had doubted it was worth trying. Ren had seemed totally out of it, not even paying attention to educational stuff and that meant something was wrong. Faith had just gotten back from dropping off the other girl at her house, after taking Ren to get some ice cream and trying to get the girl to spill what was wrong. But of course the younger girl had repeatedly claimed everything was fine and tried to tell Faith that she just wasn't feeling alright.

Sighing, the brunette turned the page and stared at the chemical symbols. Maybe that was all there was to it, Ren wasn't feeling well. But somehow Faith had the feeling there was more to it and she hated having her friend be so down. She knew that she'd try just about anything to cheer up the girl and maybe find out what was bothering the brunette. Glancing down at her book, Faith slowly got up and grabbed her jacket. Friends were just more important than some Chem test that was worth twenty percent of her grade and Faith had some errands to run.

Walking out the door the brunette shook her head, she couldn't believe where she was headed. If anyone saw her, her reputation would be ruined. Chuckling at the thought she walked down the street in the cold wind, trying to get to her destination as quickly as possible.

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Buffy sighed and swiveled around in the chair to look out the window. It was windy and the sky pretty dark, considering it wasn't past 4 pm. Maybe it would rain, it definitely would fit her mood. The blonde stood up and pulled the curtains aside on the kitchen window, looking out at the street. It was suburbia, no doubt about it: the same big houses with their white picket fences and expensive cars in the driveway, some kid's toys lying in the front yard for good measurement. It was way too fucking happy for the way she was feeling.

Sighing, she turned around and walked into the empty living room. Her mom was still at work, and would be for another couple of hours, and Faith had left the house not ten minutes ago saying something about an errand. Buffy couldn't care less, as long as the brunette wasn't meeting up with that little friend of hers. With the threat the blonde had uttered earlier she hoped that Ren would be wise enough to stay away from Faith, after all Buffy wasn't making empty promises.

She looked around the room, knowing that she couldn't just sit here and brood. But Kyrie was out with her mom on a shopping spree, and Buffy usually preferred not to be around Jaycee and the sheep without her best friend around. She feared her brain cells might die from the lack of usage and the blonde groaned. There wasn't really anyone…except…Buffy smiled and picked up the phone. She'd been talking to Donnie lately at school and he was a pretty nice guy. Not to mention that if she hung out with him Faith would realize what she was missing and come back to her.

Dialing Donnie's number she hoped at least he was available and she could get out of the boringness of this house.

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It was getting even colder. The wind was harsh and she was definitely glad she'd remembered to take her jacket. If she hadn't known better, the girl would've figured it was about ready to snow. It didn't snow much in Sacramento, a few days out of the year maybe and that not even definitely. She thought back to her childhood, the way the wind had felt just as chilling as now and how the air smelt of snow; but after all it did snow a lot in Boston. Faith did miss the snow, it was one of the few happy memories of being a child; going sledding and having snowball fights.

The brunette sighed and stuffed her hands deeply into her pockets, continuing on walking down the street. At least she'd managed to get done with her errand before the weather got any worse, now she just had to hurry up and get out of the wind. It wasn't even 4:30 pm yet, but already the sky looked dark, with black clouds chasing after her. As long as she'd have someone with a car be willing to drive later, rainy weather was perfect for what she had planned. At least she wouldn't be wasting away a sunny day inside, though Faith had to remind herself that in California those rules mostly didn't apply. There was sun pretty much all the time and people just didn't have the same excitement when the sun was out as they'd had in Boston.

She stopped suddenly, looking at the big house to her left. A white fence surrounded an immaculate front yard that lay in front of a just as immaculate, white house. The were tall windows on the ground floor, each with its own green shutters and three windows in the roof. Faith walked along the driveway, up the two steps towards the door and after a few seconds of staring at the green door she knocked. Footsteps could be heard coming from inside the house and the door was opened after only a few seconds. Faith smiled nervously and looked down at the redheaded woman; it always made her feel uncomfortable to be around adults and that this woman was a State Senator made it only worse.

"Uh, hey Mrs. Stevens…Ren here?" she mumbled, knowing she should probably use correct grammar, but that just wasn't on her mind right now.

"Hey Faith, sure, come on in. Didn't you just leave?" the woman asked, giving her a confused look as she closed the door behind the girl.

Brushing some stray hair out of her eyes, the brunette smiled and shrugged, "Yeah…but Ren was pretty down for some reason. I figured I'd come cheer her up…if it's alright with you, of course."

"Oh yeah, of course. You know where her room is," Eileen Stevens smiled back at the girl and nodded towards the staircase. She'd met this girl a few times and for some reason she really liked Faith. The brunette seemed to have a positive impact on her daughter; Eileen had seen Ren smiling a lot more in the past few weeks.

"Uh…I…could I ask you for a big favor?" the brunette girl mumbled, looking to her feet nervously as the woman approached her with a curious look.

"Sure, I guess so. What is it, Faith?"

Looking up with a soft smile on her lips Faith explained what she needed the woman's help for.

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"Hey girlfriend," came the familiar voice from behind her and Ren turned her head around abruptly.

"Faith," she responded, surprised at seeing the other girl. Ren smiled softly as the brunette walked over and plopped down on the bed next to her. The younger girl couldn't help but inwardly sigh at the greeting Faith had given her; she knew that Faith used the phrase 'girlfriend' just about as much as she herself called her brother a name. But it didn't mean she couldn't just wish a little…

Ren shook the thoughts from her head, she couldn't be thinking this kind of stuff around her friend. Eventually she might let something slip and scare Faith off; she'd rather have the brunette as a friend than not at all. Faith was still smiling, looking at her almost expectantly.

"What're you doing here?" she finally asked, hoping she didn't sound like she didn't want the older girl around. Because the second that Faith had dropped her off and left the house she'd already wished that her friend would come back.

"Well, you looked like you could use some cheering up. Oh…and I got you something," Faith grinned, pulling a small paper bag from her pocket and handing it to the other girl.

Ren raised an eyebrow and took the bag reluctantly; she knew Faith's taste in pretty much everything, and it was the exact opposite of anything the younger girl preferred. She opened the bag, looking inside and bracing herself for the worst, but both of the brunette's eyebrows shot up as she pulled out the single item.

"Faith," she breathed out, staring at the other girl who wore a silly grin, and Ren held up the pen for both of them to see, "Faith, you got me a pen?"

The taller brunette nodded eagerly, "Yeah…I figured you needed a new good-luck pen. So I got you one, it's sort of like your old one, right?"

Ren opened her mouth, then looked down at the pen and nodded, "Yeah…uh Faith?"

"Yep?"

"The pen's purple and…and it's got a feather," Ren spoke softly; she still couldn't believe what she was looking at.

"Yeah…I thought you liked those? I mean, I would've gotten pink, but they were out," Faith shrugged, wondering why her friend was giving her such a weird look.

"Okay that's it…what'd you do with Faith?" Ren asked, her voice harsh in mockery, but she was grinning as well as Faith held up her hands.

"Hey…it's all me. Why, you don't like it?"

"No…of course I like it, it's a cute pen…but Faith…they don't exactly sell this in the stores you tend to visit," the younger girl explained and stared down at the purple feather on her new pen.

"Yeah, I know…and man, I don't think I've ever heard a salesclerk say 'awesome' as many times as in the three minutes and twenty-two seconds I spent in that girly store!"

Ren laughed softly, then looked at her friend still grinning and despite the pleading voice in her head telling her not to, the brunette leaned forward and hugged the taller girl, "Thanks Faith…this is probably the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me."

She heard the other girl chuckle and sat back, her body now in a lot closer proximity to Faith's than before and Ren couldn't say that it didn't make her kind of nervous. Looking up into the soft, brown eyes of her friend she cocked her head slightly, waiting for whatever the girl had to say.

"Come on, I've got another surprise for ya. But for this one we've kinda gotta go all the way to the other end of the city," the brunette smiled, shyly almost and stood up, holding out her hand.

Ren took the brunette's hand without hesitation and stood up, but one look outside the window told her that maybe leaving the house wasn't such a good idea, "Uh…Faith, it looks like it's about to pour. Are you sure you really wanna get all wet while walking across town?"

But Faith's confident grin told her that the girl had thought this through and the older girl pulled on Ren's hand, "Don't worry, I got your mom to drive us."

Too stunned for words Ren let herself be pulled out of her room and down the stairs. If she tried to count the times she'd asked her mom for rides and been told to take the bus or walk she'd still be here tomorrow, she couldn't believe her mom had given in to Faith. But then again, she could totally understand.


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry for the delay, this school thing really sucks! The next update will be sooner, I promise! 

**Part 6**

She looked up at her friend's eyes and burst out laughing, then directed her gaze towards the retreating form of her mother who was shaking her head. Grinning again she nudged Faith and chuckled again. Her mom had just picked them up from the planetarium, where, much to Ren's surprise, Faith had asked her to take them. But the whole way back Faith had been making her laugh and that had resulted in Eileen Stevens calling them both two giggling, little girls, much to Faith's dismay of course.

Ren turned her head up towards the sky, knowing she wouldn't be seeing too many stars. She still couldn't believe Faith had taken her to the planetarium, Ren didn't even know how the other girl had found out about her love of astronomy. The brunette couldn't remember anyone ever taking her anywhere just to cheer her up, let alone to one of her most favorite places. If the thing with the pen hadn't been the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her, then this definitely was.

Sighing, she pushed the door open gently, stepping inside the house, followed closely by Faith. The older brunette closed the door behind them, giving her friend a warm smile and Ren was just about say something when they both spotted two heads turning towards them from the sofa to their far right. Ren just about choked when she saw just who was sitting in their living room with Donnie, watching movies, and she unconsciously took a step backwards.

"Uh…hey Buffy, what're you doing here?" Faith was the first to find her voice as the four teens stared at each other in silence.

The blonde girl blinked, glancing at Donnie and then shrugged, "I got bored so I called up Donnie to see if he wanted to hang. Where'd you guys go?"

When Buffy said the word 'guys' Ren even winced, for she could've sworn the blonde girl was throwing daggers her way by just looking at her. So she took another step back, but also closer to Faith, which she figured wasn't such a good idea as Buffy stood up and walked over to them.

"Just around," Faith shrugged and looked at Ren who was looking cautiously at the blonde girl, but then glanced up as the dark-haired boy walked up behind Buffy.

"Well, I was going to head home anyway, mom's cooking dinner. You coming Faith?" Buffy asked, a small smile on her lips as she grabbed her jacket, then turned to hug Donnie as Faith nodded yes. She walked up to the door, figuring the brunette would just follow right away, but narrowed her eyes as she saw the two girls hugging.

"Hey thanks, I had a great time…I'll see ya tomorrow, right?" Faith mumbled into the shorter girl's ear, but Buffy had no trouble hearing and actually had to stop herself from growling.

After smiling at Ren, and receiving a bright one in return, Faith followed the blonde out into the cold evening air. She hoped the walk home, that usually wasn't longer than 5 minutes, wouldn't turn out to be a total disaster.

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"So, what's going on between you and…Ren?" Buffy asked softly; she figured it was better to get right to what was on her mind, instead of beating around the bush. Stuffing her hands deep down into her pockets as she glanced at the brunette walking next to her, the blonde hoped that the answer wasn't the one she'd been fearing. Because if it was, then not only had she lost Faith, but she'd also have to seriously injure another human being; not that that really was a problem.

"Nothing…we're just good friends…why?" Faith shrugged, looking at the blonde with a questioning look.

"I don't know…the way you act around her, it just sort of reminds me of us at the beginning," the blonde responded, hoping that the bitterness and anger she felt wasn't audible in her voice.

"No," the brunette shook her head, looking down at the street, "no…it was different with you and me at the beginning."

"How's that?" Buffy asked, looking at Faith and licking her lips. She couldn't help but hope that the brunette was still feeling something for her; in fact she knew Faith hadn't just stopped feeling for Buffy.

"'Cause I knew I loved you from the first time I saw you," the younger girl responded quietly, eventually lifting her head and looking into hazel eyes.

Buffy smiled softly, then shook her head and hardened her gaze, "And you're willing to throw all that away?" She heard the brunette scoff and decided to look away, before she might give a harsh look or something of the likes.

"Me? You're the one that cheated…you can't tell me that if I'd been the one to sleep with some random guy, that you would've just accepted me back with open arms as if nothing had happened!"

Sighing, the blonde swallowed the biting remark about Faith and being promiscuous and looked up at her ex-girlfriend, "No, of course not…but I still wouldn't've denied my feelings for you, Faith. And I know you can't either…Faith, I love you and I know you didn't just stop loving me."

"Buffy, I know that I still have feelings for you but…it's just not that easy!" Faith shook her head, rubbing a hand across tired eyes and hoped the blonde would just let it drop. She wasn't in the mood to talk about their relationship, or lack thereof.

"I know that…but can't we at least try? Can't we try to work things out and get back together?" the blonde pleaded, wishing she didn't have to resort to this, but if it worked she wasn't going to complain. Sure, she did love Faith, but somehow during the past month this had become about not letting that little, skanky geek have Faith, either.

"I don't know…I said it'd take time, and I'll say that again. I don't know if I'm ready to get back together, I'm not even sure I want that right now, Buffy."

"Will you at least think about it?"

Faith slowed her step and looked at Buffy, then straight ahead to where their house was coming up, "Yeah…I'll think about it."

Buffy gave her a soft smile as they entered the driveway, but internally her response wasn't as soft. She was practically cheering…Faith was hers once again.

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Ren sat on the staircase, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting on her hands. She was more than confused about what was going on between her and Faith. This stuff she was feeling, it just couldn't be happening. All this was way over her head and the brunette sighed, knowing that she probably wasn't going to get a good night's sleep. A voice coming from the bottom of the stairs made her head snap up, and the brunette looked at her mom with a confused look.

"Ren? Why are you sitting there on the stairs?"

She sighed, brushing a strand of dark hair behind her ear and looked at her mom for a few seconds, "Mom…can I ask you something?"

Her mother hesitated, wondering what this was about, but eventually nodded, holding out her hand for her daughter to take. Ren slowly followed the older woman into the living room, sitting on the sofa next to her mother and decided that staring at her feet was just as productive as conversation.

"So honey, what'd you want to ask?" Eileen finally questioned, watching her daughter look anywhere but in her eyes.

"Well…say there's this person…and…they like another person, but the other person doesn't know how that person feels and they might still be in love with a third person, who the first person knows probably isn't any good for them…but they can't say that or how they feel because the person might not like them back and…," Ren started, not noticing the totally confused look she was receiving from her mother, who eventually decided to stop her.

"Honey, what…what are you talking about?" the redheaded woman asked softly, having a feeling that she already knew what this was about.

"One person liking another who might not like them back because they like someone else?" the brunette girl raised an eyebrow, looking at her mom who looked back at her, opened her mouth but then stopped before she could say anything.

Eileen Stevens closed her mouth, not sure what she really wanted to say. She had her suspicions, they were probably true as well, but she wasn't sure how to go about this. Figuring the best way to do this was probably just come right out and say it, the older woman placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder and looked at her.

"Is this about you and Faith?" She was surprised herself at how calm and steady her voice sounded, nowhere near what she was really feeling. It wasn't really the fact that her daughter might like another girl; although as much as she wished it didn't, it still made her feel slightly uncomfortable. She just wasn't totally sure she wanted to give her 15-year-old daughter relationship advice.

"Wh…what?" Ren stuttered, flinching at her mom's touch.

"Honey, do you like Faith? More than in a 'good friend' way?" her mom asked softly, knowing that she probably wasn't the only one not too good at this relationship advice stuff.

"I…uh…well…," Ren started nervously, then took a deep breath; if she really wanted some advice from her mom she was probably better off spilling the beans, "uh…yes…I like her, that way."

Eileen Stevens took a deep breath, looking at her daughter who lowered her head, almost as if ashamed and she knew there was only one thing for her to do. Make the girl know that it was the most normal thing in the world to have crushes on people, no matter if boy or girl.

"Well, have you told her?"

"Uh…no," the brunette answered, surprised that her mom didn't even care that she liked another girl; it was as if it didn't really matter at all. She looked up at her mom who had an expectant look on her face and shrugged her shoulders, "I just don't know mom…I mean, she's got that flirty, charming way with everybody, so I don't know if she feels the same way. And then there's still the issue of Buffy, her ex, who isn't very intent on letting go."

"I see…why did they break up in the first place?" the older woman questioned, leaning back against the sofa as her daughter did the same.

Ren grimaced and looked at her mom, she wasn't sure if that was something to share with a parent, "Uh mom…you might not want to know."

Her mom only smiled and raised an eyebrow, letting the girl know that she wanted every piece of information. By the time Ren did go to bed it was late, way too late for her to get a good night's sleep and do perfect on the Chem test the next morning, but to her it was worth it. Not that her mother's advice to 'just go and tell her how you feel' didn't make her extremely nervous. While trying to fall asleep the girl tried to think of a perfect place and time to tell Faith how she really felt.

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"Hey," she smiled, sitting down next to the brunette girl at the table. Brown eyes met hers and a grin spread across the girl's face at the sight of her.

"What are you so happy about?" the girl laughed, eyeing her friend who looked like the cat who at the canary.

"Well," Ren leaned back against the lunch-table, her elbow resting on the old wood, her legs dangling off the bench they were sitting on, "there's this thing on Saturday…and my brother's band is playing so since I'm lead singer I gotta be there…and…"

Faith held up a hand to stop her, raising an eyebrow at the brunette in front of her, "Wait a second…you're in a band?"

Shrugging her shoulders the younger girl glanced around the lunchroom without much interest, then looked back at her friend, "Yeah…well it's kind of Louis' band, but hey…anyway, Louis got us this gig at some kid's party this Saturday and…"

Again Ren was interrupted by Faith's hand, that quickly shot up before she had a chance to continue and the older girl looked at her incredulously, "You sing?"

Ren laughed softly and nodded, then continued with what she had been meaning to say for the past few minutes, "Yes, I sing. But what I was trying to say, before someone interrupted me, was that I'm gonna be at this party and since Louis said I could bring a friend or two…well I was wondering whether you'd wanna come?"

After a few seconds of silence from the older girl, Ren started to become nervous, hoping she hadn't said something to scare the other girl away, "But you…don't have to come…if you don't want to…I mean…it's fine if you don't want to…come…"

Faith broke out into a wide grin that made Ren's heart jump just a little bit, "And miss you sing? Not a chance girlfriend."

Breathing out a sigh of relief, the shorter girl looked at her friend, who still seemed amazed at the idea of her being the lead singer of a band and shook her head. Now if she could just get herself to tell Faith how she really felt…

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The woman looked at the girl in front of her with a concerned expression and sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time in five minutes, "Faith…you know I don't want you going to those head-banging get-togethers where you need at least one tattoo or unconventional piercing to even be let in…"

The brunette girl suppressed a groan and tried hard not to roll her eyes, then cocked her head slightly and put on her best 'innocent' expression before speaking, "Yes mom, I know that…and I completely understand your concern. Which is why this party is absolutely nothing like that…some Junior from my school is throwing a very normal, rich-kids party. Ren invited me, and mom you know she'd never go to one of those bad parties that you don't like."

Joyce Summers raised her eyebrows, watching in interest as Faith tried to convince her to let her go to this party. It was hard to try and not laugh at the girl's expression, but she somehow managed. She was just about to consider allowing the girl to go, when Buffy, who was sitting on the sofa next to her, chimed in.

"Mom…you said that you won't let us go out until we've done all our homework and have good grades. What ever happened to that?"

Heaving a sigh, the older woman nodded and looked back at Faith, who was wearing a defeated expression, "Well, she is right, Faith."

"But I did all my homework already," the brunette mumbled, looking at Joyce pleadingly.

"How about your schoolwork? You said you weren't doing so great in Chemistry…how was your test?" Joyce watched as the girl looked away and sighed, she hated to do this almost; Faith had improved in every class much to her surprise, but Chemistry still gave her problems and Joyce just couldn't ignore the rule she'd imposed.

"I…I don't know…haven't gotten it back, yet. But…I mean…if I did well on the test I'll have a B in Chem. Do you think I can go then?"

Joyce looked at the girl, then nodded slowly. She didn't really want to have to tell the girl that she couldn't go to the party, Faith was working very hard, but it wasn't fair to impose rules on Buffy that weren't going to apply to the brunette. Faith nodded as well and slowly walked up the stairs without as much as another word, but her motherly instinct told her something might just be wrong. Hoping the girl would come to her with any problems, Joyce Summers settled back into the sofa to watch her movie.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: The song used in this chapter belongs to the Disney Channel, I think. **  
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**Chapter 7**

Ren watched as the teacher walked down the row of chairs with an almost sinister look on the woman's face. It wasn't anything unusual, the teacher always seemed sinister right before handing out their tests. The woman's little speech about how they should all study more, how no one really understood the subject, how this class was just a disappointment had been going on for almost five minutes now. They always came before the handing out of graded tests at the end of the class period and Ren just ignored it. She had other things to worry about.

Faith had told her this morning that without a decent grade on this test she wasn't allowed to go to the party. And the party was Ren's only chance to tell the girl how she felt, the only time she'd be brave enough to make any kind of move. She really wished she'd helped Faith with Chemistry that day instead of brooding about Buffy insulting her. Seeing the girl turn around and weakly smile at her she gave a reassuring smile back and watched as the teacher finally picked up the stack of tests.

To say that her stomach wasn't doing somersaults would've been lying. She wasn't even too worried about her own test, she understood all the material and even if she were to fail, which was highly unlikely, she'd still get an A in the class. No concerns on her part, but she wasn't watching out for herself. Her eyes were watching Faith, watching the teacher pass the girl by at least a dozen times, her stomach doing a 360 every time that happened. Eventually a test landed on her own desk, along with the teacher mumbling "Great, like always", but she really didn't care too much. A quick glance down confirmed her suspicions, an A and again, nothing to worry about.

But then the teacher stopped at Faith's desk, handing her a test, but it was getting too loud in the classroom for Ren to hear what the teacher was saying. And as the woman walked away, the brunette girl's back was facing her. Suddenly the bell rang, almost making her jerk in surprise, and students jumped up right and left. Ren watched as Faith stood up, then turned around with an unreadable expression on her face and took a step towards her. Within a few seconds a wide grin spread across the taller girl's face and she laughed.

"I got an A! Someone really messed up and I ain't gonna tell no one they did!"

Ren's eyes widened and she immediately wrapped her arms around her friend, knowing that now she'd finally get her chance. As she let go, Faith was waving her test in the air, still grinning like a complete idiot and Ren couldn't help but laugh. Now she just had to find it in her to plain out tell Faith that she liked her…and hope to have Faith like her back.

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The place was swarming with bodies, teenagers standing around sipping drinks, some making very awkward attempts at flirting, others trying to show off. She'd barely stepped into the large house when she received a pat on the back from a friend, who vanished as quickly as he'd appeared, leaving her no chance to ask where the band was at. Figuring that it couldn't hurt to just walk around and take a look into every room, the girl pushed past the group of kids standing in the entrance hall and walked into the nearest room.

She realized she'd entered the kitchen as heaps of snack food and drinks came before her eyes, along with the couple of kids that couldn't stay away from the food and seemed to permanently have set up camp there. Weaving around the kids and counters she made her way into another hallway, stuffed with teenagers making out that hadn't made it to one of the bedrooms in time or something. Groaning, the brunette left the hallway and finally found herself in a large room that was probably the living area.

Faith dodged two guys running towards the hallway and looked around carefully. Most of the kids seemed to be in here, which could only mean that this was where any kinds of music would be. She walked around the back that wasn't as crowded and spotted a semi-stage at the front of the room. On that stage she could make out Louis, fiddling with some computer equipment stuff, and the two boys and girl she'd seen him hang around with at school standing around him with. Then to the back of the stage there were two other guys, one sitting at his drums looking like he was about to fall asleep and another with a bass strapped to him, not seeming to happy either. Not that Faith really cared for them at all, she was still searching for Ren.

And then she finally did see her, sitting on one of the speakers off to the side, holding a microphone in one hand and brushing some hair out of her face with the other. Faith took a step forward, her view of the girl blocked by some basketball player's head, and she stepped around the guy to be able to see. But as soon as she did, the brunette regretted the move. From her newly acquired position in the room she could not only see Ren, smiling brightly and laughing at something, but also the cute boy standing next to the stage talking to her. Faith recognized him instantly, Bobby Deaver, the guy almost every girl in her grade was fawning over; not to mention that Louis had told her Ren had practically been in love with the guy since the 8th grade. Bobby had his left hand strategically placed on the speaker Ren was sitting on, leaning his body against it and looked up at the brunette with brown puppy dog eyes. He was saying something completely brainless probably, but the brunette girl laughed and touched his arm slightly with her free hand.

Faith didn't even move a muscle; how could she, she was practically frozen into place. All day, no even yesterday after leaving school, had she been waiting to go to this stupid party and not because it was a party, but because she'd be able to see Ren. Apparently the other girl had found someone else to hang around with, though and Faith couldn't help but feel slightly hurt. And slightly was probably an understatement. She knew that the look on her fallen face was probably easier to read than a 1st grader's English book, but Faith didn't care.

Realizing that standing around looking like someone had stolen her favorite toy wasn't an option, Faith decided to leave. She wasn't going to stay around and watch Ren flirt with some cute guy, who would never like her for who she really was. Scoffing at her own stupidity for even coming, the girl turned around and walked away from the crowd.

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Ren smiled again for what seemed like the hundredth time and suppressed a groan. Bobby Deaver was flirting with her and she couldn't get herself to care. Just a year ago she probably would've sold her soul to Louis to get just five minutes of this, but now…it just wasn't the same. But she wasn't someone to be rude and so left herself no choice but to go along with this little charade, at least until Louis could get the stupid computer to work and they'd finally get to start playing. She snapped out of her thoughts as Bobby laughed, probably having made another bad joke, and laughed fakely, then touched his arm lightly with her empty hand just like in the movies.

But the boy kept going and Ren let her eyes graze the rows of kids standing in the room talking to each other. Maybe Bobby would get the hint somehow and decide to leave, it wasn't like he couldn't find some other girl to flirt with. The boy was asking her a question and she was just about to redirect her attention to him at least momentarily, when her eyes caught onto something. Ren's heart leaped just a little as she spotted Faith, but it sunk even faster when she saw the look on the older girl's face. The brunette's face was fallen, her expression showing nothing but hurt, defeat and sadness. And before Ren had a chance to question either herself or possibly the girl why she was wearing that expression, Faith turned around and was slowly advancing towards the exit.

Ren panicked, this couldn't be happening. She'd gotten Faith to come here, gotten herself to want to tell the girl how she felt…and now Faith was about to walk out of the room. Knowing there wasn't anything else she could possibly do, Ren stood up abruptly, clutching the microphone in her hand tightly. She saw Bobby giving her a questioning look, but she couldn't've care less and took a step towards the middle of the stage. Throwing a quick glance at the others on the stage, she raised the microphone to her face and closed her eyes before she started singing.

"Stop…Don't Go,

There's something you got to know…"

-------------------------------------------

"Stop…Don't Go,

There's something you got to know…"

Faith stopped dead in her tracks upon hearing Ren's voice, amplified by the speakers and she slowly turned around. The brunette girl was standing in the middle of the stage, microphone clutched tightly in her hands and opened her eyes slowly. The other kids on the stage were looking at each other in confusion, but quickly scrambled for their instruments.

"Can't you see,

the hold you have on me…"

Looking at the girl on the stage, Faith held her breath as they locked eyes and Ren smiled softly, but nervously at her. Meanwhile the other band members had gotten a hold of their instruments and started playing along with the next verse.

"That look, your smile,

oh it drives me wild,

and I don't know how to escape it…"

Faith walked further inside the room, her eyes never leaving the other girl's and her senses not even acknowledging the other people around her. She was too busy listening and watching to notice anything else, really.

"When you walk into the room,

my heart's beating wild and crazy,

I can't speak when I look at you,

My tongue gets tied and my mind is hazy…"

A gentle smiled played around her lips as she stopped, not wanting to get too close to have everyone notice her staring like a brainwashed zombie from 'Night of The Living Dead'. And she didn't want to risk bumping into anyone, since Faith didn't have the willpower to look anywhere but those two brown eyes. Not that she really wanted to look anywhere else at the moment.

"My heart's beating wild and crazy,

I can't speak when I look at you,

My tongue gets tied and my mind is hazy."

Faith could only blink in amazement as the song ended and watch as Ren handed her mike to the other girl on the stage. The younger brunette stepped off the stage and walked over to her, their eyes never breaking contact.

-------------------------------------------

She was nervous, way beyond nervous actually. This was the part where she had planned on telling Faith how she felt, and it was nowhere near easy. Ren wiped her hands on the back of her pants, hoping that she wasn't exuding nervousness like a Junior High student about to be kissed for the first time. Smiling, she stepped up to Faith, their eyes hadn't broken contact since she'd first started singing and that at least gave her some hope. If Faith hadn't cared she would've probably walked away, no matter what Ren had done.

The shorter girl stopped in front of the brunette and searched for the right words to open the conversation with. Faith was practically staring at her in amazement and it made her even more nervous. Silence surrounded them for what seemed like minutes, but was really only a few seconds. Although they could hear the band playing in the background and the teens on the dance-floor talking or whatever they did to make noise, the two girls didn't actually acknowledge it. Faith was the first one to speak.

"Wow…that was…amazing," she breathed, still finding it hard to believe how great the other girl had sounded.

Ren looked down at her feet, finally breaking the eye contact, and pushed her hands into the back-pockets of her tight pants. She nodded gently and smiled as she looked back up, deciding that it was now or never.

"Can we uh…go outside?" she mumbled, feeling her voice almost give out, but she managed to get the sentence out nevertheless.

"Yeah, sure," Faith answered softly and they walked out of the room side by side.

As soon as they stepped out the door onto the front yard, the cold evening air surrounding them, Ren felt her heart speed up and her stomach protesting violently. Faith led them across the immaculate lawn out into the dark street. Either there were no streetlights or they weren't working, but the only dim illumination came from the big houses lining the street and that actually made Ren relax for some reason. They stepped onto the sidewalk and Faith sat down on the curb, patting the spot beside her until Ren joined her and they sat in silence again for a few seconds.

Cars were parked all along the sidewalk, most of them probably kids attending the party, and they could hear a faint whisper of the music from inside out where they were sitting. But it was quiet besides that, most kids were either inside the house or in the backyard swimming pool and no one was very likely to bother them out here. Ren was looking down at her feet, trying to gather the courage to finally say what was on her mind. Sneaking a quick glance up at the other brunette she decided to just go ahead and say it.

"Well…I…I'm glad you didn't leave," she started quietly, looking back up at Faith and down at her feet again, knowing that the other girl was watching her now, "I…wanted you…to hear the whole song…" Closing her eyes Ren wondered why this was so hard. She'd gotten out at least half of what she meant to say, how much harder could it get?

"…because…cause it's how…how I feel about…you." Her voice started cracking at the end of the sentence and Ren took a deep breath, before looking up and meeting Faith's eyes with every last ounce of courage in her body, "I…really like you, Faith."

She'd finally said it, let Faith know how she felt and couldn't help but hope that the other girl would tell her she felt the same way. She was almost expecting it, but the silence was like a tight band squeezing her heart and taking her breath away. Faith was still looking at her, but her expression was unreadable and after what seemed like hours of staring at each other, Ren just couldn't keep looking at the girl. She lowered her head, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears from falling and held her breath. If she started crying now in front of Faith the situation would be even worse. What had she expected, she knew about Buffy and Faith and that Faith probably still loved the blonde. Ren couldn't believe she'd gotten her hopes up like this, had set herself up like that. Faith was probably trying not to laugh right now and thinking of a way to turn her down more or less nicely. This just wasn't fair, she didn't want it to hurt like this and…

Before Ren had a chance to fall deeper into the confines of her mind, she felt warm fingers touch her skin, lifting her chin up gently and she was forced to look into Faith's eyes once again. What she saw in the other girl's eyes now surprised her, but she had no chance to assess what was going on. The fingers cupping her cheek moved along her face and behind her neck and Ren didn't even register what was going on until she felt two soft lips tenderly brush against hers. And when the realization finally sunk in that Faith was really kissing her, Ren leaned into the touch, responding to the kiss and she knew that she was in heaven.

-------------------------------------------

"…I still can't believe she did that, I mean that must've been totally embarrassing."

They were walking down the dark street, her discussing some very embarrassing scene of a friend of hers the other day at school, him watching her with a smile on his lips. It hadn't taken very long to convince her go to this party and he was glad to have at least one friend that wasn't a brainless idiot.

Buffy glanced over at the dark-haired boy and smiled softly. She was definitely glad he'd asked to come to this party, there was nothing worse than having nothing to do on a Saturday night. But of course being the people they were, popular and recognized, they had to make a fashionably late entrance, not that anything was really wrong with that. Except for the fact that there'd been almost no parking space; they'd finally found a free spot a few feet down the road and earned themselves a few minute walk towards the house in return for their late entrance.

"So, did you hear from Josh yet? He said he wanted to talk to you about next…"

Donnie looked at her as she stopped in the middle of her sentence, wondering why she wasn't continuing and then saw her face. The blonde girl had not only stopped speaking, but also stopped dead in her tracks, her head turned towards the sidewalk, eyes opened wide and mouth just about hanging open. He followed her gaze and couldn't help but widen his eyes as well. In the middle of the sidewalk, barely illuminated by the lights from the house, were his sister and that girl that lived with Buffy…kissing. Before he had a chance to croak out anything, Buffy did it for him.

"Faith."

-------------------------------------------

"Faith."

The brunette girl jerked her head away upon hearing her name and stared confused into the now angry face of her ex-girlfriend. She could feel Ren next to her, moving away just a few inches and Faith had no doubt it was because of the look on the blonde's face. Buffy slowly walked over to them, almost as if trying to make them nervous by having them wonder what was awaiting them.

"I can't believe you would go this far!" Buffy's voice finally catapulted her out of her thoughts, thoughts about how she could possibly diffuse this situation with the least amount of damage dealt.

"Huh?" Faith looked up at the blonde, not exactly knowing what the girl was talking about, then glanced behind her ex-girlfriend to see Donnie standing a little farther off, looking very much dumbfounded.

"That you would go this far just to get revenge on me! What the hell is wrong with you…I said I was fucking sorry! Do you have to go and kiss someone else just to get back at me Faith?!"

The yelling finally snapped her out of it and the brunette narrowed her eyes, trying to find a way to negate the statement without sounding like a complete idiot. After all what Buffy was saying wasn't totally true, but if she just denied everything, well Bill Clinton had tried that too and see where it'd gotten him.

"You know that's not true," she finally responded, congratulating herself for the worst answer she could've probably given.

"Yeah? Tell me you didn't want to get revenge on me Faith. Look at me and tell me that!"

Closing her eyes, the brunette looked away. What was the point in denying it? Of course she'd thought about it, getting back, payback's a bitch and all. But she wasn't really that person anymore, years ago she would've slept with the first available person just to get revenge, but now…Faith had known she could never do it and opted to just not even think about it anymore. But she still had wanted to get revenge at some point in time.

"Faith…what…what's this all about?" Ren asked softly, her voice holding only confusion and hurt and Faith suppressed a groan. This situation was just perfect, it probably couldn't get any worse than this.

"Yeah Faith…what's this all about?" Buffy interjected, her voice nowhere near soft or hurt. The blonde was angry, probably way beyond pissed, judging by the way she was glaring at the two brunettes.

"I…I…uh…," Faith tried, knowing there wasn't actually any coherent sentence formed in her mind, but Buffy interrupted her before she could continue making a fool out of herself.

"God, I just can't believe you'd try to get back at me like this…with HER nonetheless. You told me we were getting back together Faith," the blonde yelled, her voice getting softer at the end of the sentence as if she expected the brunette to finally have an answer.

But before Faith could say anything to save herself, she felt Ren move beside her and turned her head towards the other girl. The younger brunette had tears in her eyes and stood up slowly, her gaze locked with Faith's. Ren crossed her arms, closed her eyes tightly, tears spilling down her cheeks and walked away from the blonde and brunette girl. Faith shot up, taking a few steps to catch up with the girl and grabbed her arm gently to stop her from leaving.

"Ren…," she spoke so softly she herself had trouble hearing it, but the shorter girl yanked her arm away and walked up to her brother, ignoring Faith completely.

"Donnie…can you take me home? Please?"

The boy nodded, staring at Faith with an expression that was probably meant to threaten her but didn't phase her at all, then ushered his sister away. Faith swallowed the lump in her throat, forcing the tears back down, because this just wasn't the time to cry. She moved to follow the brunette girl, but Buffy's almost triumphant voice stopped her and she turned to face the blonde.

"Maybe next time you should think about the repercussions before trying to get back at me, Faith."

Faith stared at Buffy, at the glint in the blonde's eyes, and decided that there was only one thing to do and one thing only. Narrowing her eyes she glared back at the older girl.

"Not everything is about you, Buffy," she spat, then turned around and followed the direction Ren had vanished to, ignoring the surprised look on the blonde's face.

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: The song used in this chapter is "Feel So Stupid" by Darwin's Waiting Room

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**

**Chapter 8**

The door flew shut behind her and she looked around the dark room. Ren was more than glad that it was dark, she had no intentions of having any kind of light around right now. Only soft light from the streetlamps came through her window, sparsely illuminating her room. It was just enough for her to maneuver around her room without causing her to send shelves crashing to the floor.

The girl wiped a few tears from her eyes, knowing that it was useless to continue to do so…they just didn't seem to want to stop falling anyway. Sniffing, Ren walked over to her stereo, hoping that maybe some depressing music could take her mind off of Faith and what happened just a few minutes ago. She knew that eventually she'd have to address the issue, but denial seemed as good a choice as any right now. After all, that might be her only chance to get rid off this mind-numbing pain that threatened to consume her whole.

Ren had never thought it possible for a human being to feel like this; it was a bad cliché used in movies and songs and had never held true meaning for her. But now, after opening up to someone she felt she loved and finding out that she was nothing more than bait to win back some bitchy blonde bimbo, the meaning of a broken heart had finally sunken in. And she didn't like it one bit. She had prepared herself for a possible rejection from Faith after telling her about her feelings, of course she hadn't wanted or quite expected that either…but now when she thought about what had really happened, Ren wanted nothing more than to have been rejected. Because at least the pain would've only been a quarter of what she felt now, after all she had thought she was being rejected and felt hurt, but nowhere quite near this.

Having Buffy tell her that Faith had only been using her to get revenge, the thought of even her friendship being used for nothing more than payback…it hurt worse than anything else. Of course, Buffy probably wasn't the most honest being on the planet, but Faith hadn't even tried to deny the accusation of wanting revenge. Not to mention that the two girls had apparently already agreed to get back together and Ren wondered why Faith had played with her like that, kissing her when she knew she was getting back together with Buffy. Why give her something she'd only been dreaming of before, then take it away to leave her with the knowledge that it had only been to defile her? And why did it still hurt this bad?

A sob escaped her lips as more tears quietly fell from her eyes. She didn't care much for the tears, the crying just barely registered in her mind. Turning on the CD-player, Ren realized the CD wasn't even hers and picked up the case from the top of the appliance. Staring at the jewel case for a few seconds, the brunette scoffed and closed her eyes. It was one of Faith's CDs, some new punk rock band with music and lyrics so far from Ren's usual music taste that it almost scared her to see the case lying with her own CDs. But for some reason she felt that the head-banging music would probably clear her mind real well, maybe anger was better than depression after all.

Pushing the 'Play' button on her stereo, the brunette girl waited for the music to start and walked over to the corner of her room. For a second she considered lying on her bed, but that would've been way too comfortable and she felt nothing like being comfortable. Ren sank into the dark corner of her room, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs and she cried as the loud music filled her head.

-------------------------------------------

Faith sucked in deep breaths of the cold night air, hoping desperately that someone, anyone would open the door. She'd had to run the whole way from the party to Ren's house, having missed the girl and her brother by probably only a minute. Not that the house was all that far away, but the cold had put a chill in her bones, along with the realization sinking in of what had happened. Talk about a perfect evening turning into one of the worst in her life, and that in itself was pretty damn hard to do. After all there'd been many shitty evenings in Faith's life.

Suddenly the door opened and Faith stared wide-eyed into the face of the older woman, who eyed her with an almost curious look. Before the brunette girl even had a chance to explain anything, Eileen Stevens opened the door and gestured for her to come inside. Opening her mouth in an attempt to maybe ward off uncomfortable questions by giving some sort of answer before anything could even be asked, Faith tried to think of what to say. But the redheaded woman raised her hand, stopping the girl before she could start to say anything.

"I don't even want to hear it, it's between you and her."

Smiling quickly, but nervously, the brunette girl nodded and walked towards the staircase. She rested her hand on the banister, every little voice inside her head screaming at her to run, but she knew she had to do this. To explain to Ren what she couldn't really explain to herself. Taking a cautious step forward she ascended the first stair, but stopped as she heard the woman's voice calling her back.

"Oh, and Faith?"

"Yeah?" she asked softly, turning around, hoping she wasn't going to get kicked out or yelled at. She'd already been doing enough of that for the past few minutes while running here.

"You know, a wise person once said 'Never tell someone you love them because they want to hear it. Tell them because you do'," the woman smiled at her softly, then turned around to walk out of the room, leaving an only slightly confused Faith behind.

The brunette girl narrowed her eyes, surprised that the woman would take it all this well, but then remembered why she actually came. Making her way up the carpeted stairs she took deep breaths, trying to calm herself but it wasn't quite working the way it was supposed to. She had no idea what to say, what to do, to make it right. All she knew was that she didn't want it to end like this, didn't want a great friendship ruined by what had happened. Not to mention that she had been the one to kiss Ren, so there must've been something inside of her that…

Faith shook her head to clear her thoughts and stopped in front of the girl's door, raising her fist to knock softly. Then she heard the loud music coming through the door, music that sounded strangely familiar. Cocking her head slightly, the brunette girl realized Ren was actually listening to her Darwin's Waiting Room CD, a music genre definitely far away from what the younger girl usually seemed to like. Shaking her head again, she rapped gently on the door, opening it since she figured Ren wouldn't be able to hear her knocking anyway.

Darkness greeted her, along with the familiar sounds of the song playing on the stereo and she took an uncertain step inside the doorway. And as she stood there, darkness falling around her that was only pushed away by the dim light from the corridor, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the lack of light, for the first time did she listen to the lyrics. Suddenly Faith didn't wonder anymore why Ren was listening to this song.

"Love to me, was to be something more when it came to you,

Forever filling a void,

Something I cannot avoid,

Every time I'm put together I'm being destroyed."

Faith took another step into the room, trying to find Ren in the darkness. The music sunk into her bones, the meaning of the words sinking in and she closed her eyes tightly to stop the tears from falling. She had never meant to do this, had never meant to hurt the younger girl.

"So when you come around,

You'll find me on the ground,

Searching for a piece that I never found."

Stopping in the middle of the room, the brunette girl looked around, wincing as the door slowly shut behind her and finally her eyes settled on the dark form in the corner of the room.

"Ren?" she asked softly, knowing that the other girl could hear her full well since the music was getting to a quieter part. But she received no response.

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Ren lifted her eyes to look at Faith, who stood unsurely in the middle of her room, surrounded by the darkness she herself had already gotten used to. She heard the girl call her name, but Ren wasn't sure she could respond. The lump in her throat was painful, choking her, making sure the tears didn't stop while she sat and watched Faith. Closing her eyes she let herself listen to the music, once again surprised at how fitting she found the lyrics.

"I feel so stupid, friends knew it, turned to it,

I'm by…myself, bound to…be"

She looked up again as Faith walked towards her and knew that the older girl had already seen her. Ren didn't move, didn't flinch as the other girl stopped in front of her, looking at her.

"I can't find what I'm missing,

I lost myself, I hope that you're listening,

I've seen my puzzle taken apart,

It's hard to start again."

Faith knelt in front of her, pushing strands of fallen hair behind her ear and looked at Ren for a few seconds. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to hear the bad excuse Faith might have for her, whether she wanted to get hurt even more. The pain she was already feeling was intense, though it had numbed to a constant throbbing in her chest that she had almost gotten used to. Did she really want to listen to Faith and possibly open up the wounds that she'd already hidden with band-aids?

"But with you, all I knew, was the filth that you put me through,

I'm sick of reliving the past,

My time it came and it passed,

I'm holding on to the memories, making them last."

Turning her head away, Ren blinked, wishing she hadn't been crying like this. She hated to have people see her cry period, but having them see her cry when she was crying over them was even worse. The streetlight reflected off her tears and she felt soft fingers trace the outlines of the tearstains, wiping them away. Ren pushed Faith's hand away and turned her head back to look at the other girl.

"So when you come around,

you'll find me on the ground,

searching for a piece that I never found."

Their eyes met, and although it was dark, Ren could see something in the other girl's eyes. She wasn't sure whether it was remorse or guilt or worry, but either one of those still made her at least slightly curious as to what the girl could have to say. But she doubted that any words Faith could speak to her right now would take away the hurt and betrayal she was feeling. It just wasn't something that vanished as soon as you said the magic words.

"I feel so stupid, friends knew it, turned to it,

I'm by…myself, bound to…be,

I can't find what I'm missing,

I lost myself, I hope that you're listening,

I've seen my puzzle taken apart,

It's hard to start again."

Faith's hands came to rest on top of her knees that were still drawn up to her chest. Ren could feel the heat radiating through the thin fabric of her pants and looked down, wondering if she should move away. The touch felt as good as it felt bad, sending her emotions crashing down upon her in a frenzied wave of confusion. What was going on? Why was Faith even here, why wasn't she with Buffy? Ren closed her eyes as the soft hands moved down her legs until they reached her own hands that were still wrapped around her legs.

"And I knew it was to be,  
my words are quick to undress me,  
filled this heart with broken glass,  
to make this thing last,  
feel so numb when we lie together,  
feel so numb when we lie together."

Ren opened her eyes again, seeing the other girl whisper her name but no sound ever left Faith's lips. The older brunette was pleading her to listen, to pay attention; Ren could see it in her eyes. But she just wasn't sure whether she wanted to hear it. She didn't want to be told that all of it had meant nothing to Faith, that she'd been bait, part of a revenge plan. That Faith had only kissed her to get back at Buffy. Tears fell from her eyes at the reminder of what happened and a quiet sob shook her body.

"I'm by…myself, bound to…be,

I can't find what I'm missing,

I lost myself, I hope that you're listening,

I've seen my puzzle taken apart,

It's hard to start again."

She felt the brunette move besides her, sitting on the floor next to Ren, and once again soft fingertips wiped the tears from her cheeks with a gentleness she never knew existed. It almost made her believe again, almost made her think that Faith was for real and not just toying with her. People just weren't gentle with someone they didn't care about. But that nagging little voice in the back of her mind told her the exact opposite, and Ren couldn't help but listen.

" I'm by…myself, bound to…be,

I can't find what I'm missing,

I lost myself, I hope that you're listening,

I've seen my puzzle taken apart,

It's hard to start again."

She didn't even have the strength to move away again anymore. Ren wanted nothing more than to break down and cry, but she was afraid that was exactly what Faith wanted. To see her vulnerable. She tried to block out the touch, concentrating on the music, when Faith leaned away to switch off the stereo and suddenly everything became quiet.

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"Ren," she spoke softly, wincing at how loud her voice sounded in the now totally quiet room. The girl had shied away from her touch once and Faith didn't want it to happen again. She hadn't expected it would make her feel like she'd been punched in the gut in a million years.

"Listen Ren, I know this probably doesn't mean much, but…I'm sorry. I'm not sorry that I kissed you, because I meant that with all my heart…but I am sorry that Buffy said all that stuff. It wasn't right of her to do it. Especially not in front of you."

Ren turned her head to look at the other girl, giving her an angry stare, "Oh, so you could keep on pretending that I meant something to you? That I wasn't just the main character in your little ploy to get Buffy back?"

Wincing at the harshness in the brunette's tone Faith sighed. She had to diffuse this situation, but nothing except for the truth would be able to do it, "She was wrong about that. True, at first I did want to get revenge on her…but after a while I realized how stupid that was. And I was hanging out with you, which I really liked and figured it was a lot better to just try to take my mind off her by being around you. I loved being around you, still do. I didn't expect to fall for you…but I did, and it has nothing to do with what Buffy did."

The younger brunette narrowed her eyes in confusion, she wasn't sure she'd actually heard right. Faith liked her, had feelings for her? Ren shook her head, wondering why she was coming up with these crazy ideas. She must've definitely heard wrong.

"You…you mean you…like me…too?" she finally croaked out, her voice still cracking at the threat of fresh tears.

"Yeah, I do. I was just too surprised to say anything earlier…you made me speechless…I figured actions speak louder than words and…," Faith answered, giving her a soft smile before trailing off.

"Then what about you and Buffy getting back together?"

Shaking her head the taller brunette looked into brown eyes, brushing a strand of hair out of Ren's face and then sighed, "I never…she asked me about it a couple of days ago and…I wasn't sure what to say…I told her I'd think about it. But I meant that I'd think about trying to work through things…I…I'm not sure if I want to be in a relationship with her."

Ren wiped away the tears still remaining on her face and sniffed, looking at her friend expectantly. Maybe she'd been wrong after all…maybe she had a chance. And she wanted nothing more than to have that chance, to be able to be with Faith. After all the pain was already lessening just by listening to the other girl convince her she liked her, through Faith's touch.

"So…what happens now?" the younger brunette questioned, almost cursing herself for bringing it up. The moment was probably ruined now.

"I…don't know yet. It wouldn't be fair to just jump into anything unless I'm 100 sure about how I feel for that person, and how I feel about the other person. I need some time…to sort things out, I just don't want to cause even more hurt. I hope that…I hope you can understand that and…I'm not saying we can't be around each other, 'cause I wouldn't want that. I just don't want to rush anything, I can't be with someone just because they want it ; I have to do, too, y'know?"

Ren nodded slowly, understanding fully well but still wishing that Faith could just decide on the spot and hopefully pick her. But she knew it wasn't that easy; if Faith picked her she might regret it later, or constantly wonder if she hadn't made a mistake and should really be with Buffy. "Yeah I…understand, I guess. I just don't want to lose you as a friend…no matter what happens."

Smiling, Faith nodded and pulled the girl into a hug, the gesture showing that she felt exactly the same way. As she pulled back, the brunettes looked at each other for a few seconds, before Faith slowly stood up. The older girl held her hands out and pulled Ren up as well, grinning now and it made the shorter brunette smile softly as well.

"What'd you say we watch a movie, just you and me? We can't really go back to the party and it'll be kinda quiet and relaxing? I'll even let you pick," Faith smirked, sitting down on Ren's bed, never letting go of the other girl's hands.

Cocking her head, Ren chuckled softly and nodded. Maybe watching a movie with her friend was the right idea; it'd definitely be relaxing and after stressing herself out like that, relaxation sounded great. She left the room to go downstairs and grab a video, hoping she wouldn't run into anyone else from her family. She just wasn't in the mood to explain why she'd come home crying with Donnie and why Faith was in her room and why she was now feeling about a thousand times better.

Hurrying back upstairs with the movie, Ren couldn't help but laugh upon seeing the terrified look on her friend's face after seeing the movie title.

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Faith yawned slightly and redirected her attention back to the TV screen. She still couldn't believe she'd agreed to watch this movie. Some teenie-flick about a cheerleading squad with a major cheer crisis, with at least a couple of cute girls, although one looked eerily familiar. The brunette was lying back on Ren's bed, head bedded comfortably on the soft pillows and she looked to her right where the other girl was sitting Indian-style.

Looking back at the movie Faith almost scoffed at the very subtext-like display of affection between two of the cheerleaders; there was definitely something going on between that blonde and creepy brunette. She was just about to make a comment, when she felt Ren shift and move to lie down, the girl's head and arm accidentally coming to rest on Faith's shoulder and stomach.

Ren almost immediately jerked back up, mumbling a nervous, seemingly embarrassed apology and wouldn't even look Faith in the eyes. Grinning, the older girl reassured her friend that it was perfectly fine and then found herself sneaking an arm around Ren's shoulders from behind her to pull her back down. Reluctantly the shorter brunette let her head rest on Faith's shoulder, lying on her back so she could still see the TV. They were lying close, bodies touching, but Faith really didn't even register that. In fact, she was starting to enjoy the movie, laughing at a comment about 'sweater-monkeys' and soon even Ren had forgotten the butterflies she'd gotten in her stomach from being in such close contact with the brunette.

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"Gosh, are they always that bouncy and happy?" Faith grumbled, watching in disbelief as the cheerleaders bounced away happily on the screen. She hoped the movie would be over soon, she was getting kinda tired and she could tell that her friend was as well.

Looking down to ask whether she was going to have to endure cheerleaders for much longer, Faith felt the other girl shift on her left side, her head still resting on Faith's shoulder, Ren's arm unconsciously sneaking around the older girl's waist. Realizing Ren was already fast asleep, Faith took a deep breath and looked at her for a few seconds. She wasn't exactly sure what to do now. The girl looked so peaceful, so calm and relaxed and there was no way in hell Faith was going to disturb that. But she knew that if she moved, Ren would definitely wake up; the girl had told her once that she was an extremely light sleeper.

Feeling for the TV remote, Faith finally found it and turned off the movie, dipping the room in darkness once again. The door to Ren's room was closed, she could faintly hear two or three people talking, probably downstairs in the living room. Soft whispers of a TV playing accompanied the voices and somehow Faith found it very relaxing. A slit of light came through under the door, not able to illuminate much past one foot from the door, but the brightness when she looked at bottom of the door made her feel safe for some reason.

Shifting slightly, so as not to wake the sleeping girl in her arms, Faith contemplated whether she should leave. It was probably the wiser thing to do, but then again, maybe it wasn't. She felt kind of happy, lying here with Ren on top of her, hearing the girl's family talking downstairs. And going home meant to face Buffy, something she wasn't in the mood for just yet. Yawning again, Faith realized how tired she really was.

Pushing down the last little voice of doubt in the back of her mind, Faith closed her eyes, wrapping an arm around Ren's shoulders and let herself drift off to sleep as well. The two girls slept better than they had in weeks.

_To be continued..._


	9. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

Buffy lay awake in her bed, staring up at the ceiling as if an answer would befall her any second. She'd gotten home a while ago; there really had been no point in actually going to the party once Donnie had left and her evening been ruined. The whole scene with her yelling at Faith and Faith running after Ren was repeating itself over and over again in her head. Almost like instant replays, except for the freezing of the picture frame and some sports-guy drawing yellow arrows all over it: "Now, this is where Buffy made her move and…oh she lost!" She sighed and rubbed her eyes, hoping to maybe wipe away the images, but no such luck.

The blonde wasn't even tired, but she had opted to go to bed instead of listening to her mother questioning her about the evening any longer. Buffy hadn't even thought about what her mom would ask when she returned from the party less than half an hour after she'd left. And the excuse 'it was a really bad party, mom' hadn't seemed to sit well with the woman, somehow she'd figured out Buffy wasn't exactly being honest about what had happened. So, after muttering another bad excuse about being exhausted, the blonde had quietly gone to her room, knowing that she most likely wouldn't be able to sleep. But how could she be expected to, when the scene at the party was still clinging tightly to a spot in her subconscious?

Sighing, the blonde turned onto her side and let her eyes wander around her room. It was messier than usual, some clothes and schoolbooks lying in a heap on the floor, but in the past few weeks Buffy just hadn't been too interested in keeping an immaculate room. She remembered how she'd always blamed Faith for making a mess of her room in the past, an accusation that hadn't been too far from the truth since Faith just seemed to be a messy person. But now Buffy almost wished she'd never yelled at the brunette to stop leaving her clothes and other stuff lying around in Buffy's room, maybe it would've saved their relationship.

Scoffing, Buffy shook her head. Nothing would've saved that relationship, except for her not cheating with Donnie. She wondered whatever had happened to 'fight for your woman'; her mind seemed to have almost forgotten that little sentiment. It just wasn't like her to give up this quickly, losing the battle without some commotion. Maybe there was a way for her to win back Faith, no matter who she hurt in the process or what it cost. She couldn't just give up. Finally relaxing a little bit, Buffy was determined not to let anything get in her way. Sure, tonight had been a bust pretty much, but it didn't mean that she didn't have a chance. Faith still loved her, and she had no doubt about it.

Turning back onto her bed, Buffy caught a quick glance of the clock on her bedside table. Widening her eyes she leaned over, tapping the button to illuminate the numbers and closed her eyes as she leaned back into the pillows. It was already past 3 am, and Buffy had little doubt that Faith wasn't going to come home tonight. And somehow that made her feel a little uneasy.

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Both women turned their heads at the same time when the door opened. The brunette girl walked into the living room with an almost relaxed look in her eyes, but upon seeing their stern faces she looked more like a deer caught in the headlights. Taking off her jacket and dropping it onto a chair, her eyes never wandering in fear of a possible attack, she walked up to the sofa the two women were sitting on. She wasn't sure if she'd done something wrong and if that was the fact, if she was supposed to say something. All her childhood memories about doing something wrong and the response she'd been supposed to give she hoped didn't apply here. Or the punishment for doing something against the rules, though she didn't think Joyce was an abusive woman.

"Faith, where have you been?" the woman's voice snapped her out of her thoughts and the brunette looked at her dumbfounded. What kind of question was that? They knew where she'd been, she'd called them some time while watching the movie and said she was at Ren's. Sure, she hadn't mentioned a sleep-over, but it wasn't like she'd been anticipating that.

"Uh…what?" she shook her head, hoping that someone would be able to clear her confusion about what she'd really done wrong. Hadn't she covered all the bases of making sure she did everything right? Called her family, came home as soon as she'd woken up, didn't smell like smoke or sex or both…Faith was confused.

"We've been worried sick about you…you never came home last night," Buffy answered, a sweet smile on her lips as she studied the look on the brunette's face. If she hadn't been able to prevent Faith sleeping at Ren's this time, at least she could prevent future happenings of that sort.

"But I…called…I told you I was at Ren's, mom. What'd I do wrong?" Faith looked at the woman, hoping that someone would shed some light on what was going on.

"Well, you never did say anything about sleeping over at her house…," Buffy interjected again and watched as her mom nodded, seemingly in thought.

"We were watching a movie and just fell asleep…I'm sorry, I didn't know…I didn't mean to fall asleep," the brunette looked at the older woman, a pleading tone in her voice and it almost made Buffy feel a little guilty.

Joyce shook her head, looking at the girl as she walked around to the front of the sofa, "It's not that Faith, I had figured as much. But I don't appreciate being lied to."

"Wh…what?" the younger girl managed to croak out…she'd just gotten even more lost than before. Something wasn't right and it scared her. She didn't want to know what was going on, she knew that she hadn't done anything wrong. Not if Joyce didn't care about her sleeping over at Ren's without actually telling her so.

"Pretending to be going to that party just so I wouldn't think you'd be going to a club…Faith, I'm really disappointed. And if Buffy hadn't seen you leave with those punk kids to go to that rambunctious club, well I might not have found out about your lie."

Faith's eyes widened and she didn't even dare to look at Buffy. She felt like throwing up, like crying and begging her mom to believe that she hadn't done anything wrong. But Faith also knew that no one believed you things like that, no one believed you anything when you were the dark child and the golden angel voiced her opinion.

"But I…I," she tried, reasoning with herself that Joyce wasn't like her real mom back in Boston, that she would understand if Faith tried to explain.

"No buts Faith. I really don't want anything like that to happen again, so I hope you'll learn from your punishment and not do anything so foolish again," Joyce said sternly, watching as the girl's expression changed from hurt to utter fear, and the woman could've sworn Faith even took a step backwards. "You're grounded for a week, Faith…if you can prove yourself in that time I'll leave it at that and hope we can forget this little incident, alright?"

"G…g…grounded?" the brunette stuttered, relaxing slightly as the fear left her body and her shoulders slumped.

"Yes, you're grounded. Please don't try and fight my decision…I think this is a more than fair punishment for what you have done."

Faith nodded slowly, pushing some strands of hair behind her ear and sighed, "Yeah…I…I'm sorry. I'll just…go to my room."

The two women watched as the brunette girl walked up the stairs quickly and Joyce sighed. She hadn't liked doing this, she wasn't a big fan of punishment and all that, but she just didn't want Buffy and Faith to think they could do anything without consequences. Turning her head she was surprised to find her daughter wearing an almost triumphant expression and couldn't help but wonder if she'd just made a major mistake.

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She sat down on her chair and scoffed. It was just typical for life to throw another stone in her way just when she was on her way getting somewhere good. Looking down at the papers scattered on her desk Faith sighed as she realized she didn't even have any homework left to do. And it was even worse that she was almost sad about that. Being grounded meant being bored, apparently.

Sunken deep in her thoughts, the brunette didn't even hear the door open and close behind her. She turned around as she felt another presence in the room and stared at Buffy, who was slowly walking over to her. The blonde stopped in front of Faith, cocked her head and looked at her expectantly.

"Buffy…what the hell did you do?" Faith asked, trying to keep the anger out of her voice but not succeeding all that well.

The blonde smiled softly and shrugged her shoulder, stepping even closer to Faith, "Just making sure I get my girl back. Is that so wrong?"

Faith almost shuddered at the low tones in her ex-girlfriend's voice, the way Buffy was looking at her, but she shook the thoughts away immediately and replaced her confusion with something resembling a stone-face, "Buffy…I…"

But before she even had a chance to finish that sentence a soft finger brushed across her lips, silencing her, and Buffy leaned down, bringing one knee next to Faith on the chair. The blonde was kneeling on Faith's lap within a split-second and captured the brunette's lips in a kiss, that started off sweet and soft but soon turned into a display of desire and passion.

Gasping, whether it was for air or from the desire running through her, Faith pulled away and stared at Buffy in disbelief, "Buffy…I can't…just…" She was way too confused to actually know what she was saying, but the blonde was already standing up, a gleam in her eyes that Faith hadn't seen in a while.

"Well, I figured if she gets a kiss…so do I. Come on babe…mom and I rented some action movie, I'm sure you'll like it," the blonde smiled and held her hand out to Faith for her to take it.

"B…but I'm grounded?" the brunette looked up at the other girl, her throat dry and she wanted nothing more than a drink and a cold shower.

Buffy laughed softly and pulled Faith up, "You're grounded yeah…you're not in prison, Faith. Come on already."

And with that the brunette let herself be lead out of the room by Buffy, the blonde holding onto her hand even when they'd reached the bottom of the stairs.

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"Tell me again why you're grounded," the girl asked, looking at the brunette incredulously.

Faith shrugged and rested her head on her hand, watching as the other girl picked at her dangerous-looking lunch, "Just 'cause I lied about going to the party, I guess."

Ren turned her head and looked at her sternly, trying to convey with her eyes what her words didn't seem to be able to get through the brunette's skull, "Faith," she gazed at the girl in disbelief, "you didn't lie about going to the party." She still couldn't believe the girl was just allowing someone else to lie about something she hadn't done and go along with it.

Shrugging again the older brunette yawned and picked a fry off of Ren's plate, chewing on it carefully, "Yeah, but it's only for five more days if I behave like a good little girl. It's not worth trying to fight it."

Trying not to sigh Ren looked away and down at her plate. She just wasn't feeling all that hungry anymore, in fact she was feeling kind of sick. Just when she'd thought that there was a chance for her to be with Faith, it was taken away. And she knew it was Buffy's doing, after all Faith had said it had been the blonde to lie about where Faith had been. Ren also knew what it meant for Faith to be grounded…quality time with Buffy. And that was all the reason she needed to be sick.

"Hey, what's wrong?" came the concerned voice from her side and Ren pushed away her plate, shaking her head.

"Nothing…just not very hungry," she mumbled, not even daring to make eye-contact. She hated how her love-life had turned into a goddamn rollercoaster.

"Hey…if it's about us going out, I'm real sorry. I promise I'll take you somewhere as soon as I'm off this grounded thing."

Ren sighed and looked into the other girl's eyes. The older brunette looked sincere and Ren had no doubt she was, Faith probably had no idea why Buffy would lie like that to get her grounded. Forcing herself to smile and failing miserably, the brunette rubbed a hand over her forehead and sighed again. It was hard looking at Faith, knowing that she'd been kissed by those lips, knowing that she'd slept in those arms all the while knowing that she'd probably never get to do it again.

"Don't worry about it…it's cool. I can wait, no problem…and we'll still see each other at school right?" the shorter brunette finally managed to smile falsely and stood up, picking up her tray to return it to the front.

But as Faith sat and watched her friend walk away, waiting for her to return she couldn't help but feel that everything was far from 'cool'.

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The blonde laughed softly at the look she received from the brunette upon walking up to the restaurant. It was Faith's favorite restaurant and Buffy hadn't forgotten, and she was definitely glad she hadn't. The excited look on the younger girl's face was definitely worth remembering. They were seated as soon as they entered the restaurant and the brunette threw her a cautious look this time.

"Are you really sure mom said it was okay for me to go out?"

Buffy couldn't help but grin at the serious tone and nodded; she never took her punishments this seriously, there were a lot of ways to get her mother to forget that she was grounded most of the time, but Faith was intent on following the rules. "Yes Faith…she said that since she had to go overnight on that business trip we could go out to dinner. Although that's it…but I figured we can just go and rent movies afterwards, okay?"

Faith nodded with a smile and relaxed visibly. It almost made the blonde smile again, Faith was just too damn cute. And this whole grounded-thing had given her a great opportunity to make them get a little closer again. True, Faith still refused any kind of romantic contact whatsoever, saying that she couldn't just jump into a relationship without being totally sure she wanted to be with Buffy, but the good mood between them had almost completely returned. It was already Thursday, which meant only two more days of the brunette being grounded and Buffy planned on doing everything she could to make the brunette realize how much she still loved Buffy.

She'd make sure that little geek didn't stand a chance when the time came for Faith to feel ready to choose.

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"You just gotta cheer up!" the girl exclaimed and rolled her eyes, sick of having her best friend all mopey and depressed.

"Yeah, easier said than done Ruby," the brunette girl sighed and put her hands into the pockets of her pants. Ren's fears had more than come true; Faith was hanging around Buffy most of the time due to be being grounded and not even the time they spent together at school could make up for that. Not to mention that Buffy had actually talked to Faith at school, had acknowledged her beyond a simple 'hi' in the hallway.

"Come on Ren…you are no fun this way!" the blonde girl whined and tucked on her arm, giving her a stern look.

The brunette was just about to reply to that, when from the corner of her eyes she saw a familiar brunette sitting at a table in the restaurant they were passing with a familiar blonde. Turning her head to get a good look through the restaurant's window, Ren couldn't help but feel disappointed and hurt. Faith was grinning at Buffy, making some joke that sent the blonde bursting out laughing as well. Picking up speed the brunette girl almost forgot about her best friend who was still following her. She just couldn't believe what she had seen. Faith was grounded, at least that's what she had been telling her since the beginning of the week. But if she was out for dinner, that could only mean two things: Either Faith had been lying to her about being grounded, or she wasn't grounded anymore and had decided to celebrate with Buffy instead of her. Ren wasn't sure which reason sounded better. All she knew was that either way she was going to get hurt. And the knowledge of that didn't leave her much room for cheering up, much to Ruby's dismay.

_To be continued…_


	10. Chapter 10

Well, this is it guys, last chapter! Thanks so much for reading and reviewing this, I never would've finished this if it hadn't been for you! And I'm horribly sorry for waiting so long to update, I thought I'd posted this weeks ago!**  
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**Part 10**

Faith ran a hand through her dark hair and heaved a sigh. Glancing around once again she groaned and walked back out of the lunch room into the hallway. She hadn't been able to find Ren anywhere; they didn't have any classes together today until after lunch and due to an unlucky OJ accident this morning during breakfast Faith had missed homeroom. To her luck she actually ran into Ren's little blonde friend, the one that Faith couldn't stand at all. But it was worth talking to her to find the other brunette.

"Hey uh…Ruby, right? Do you know where Ren is?" the tall brunette asked, looking at the girl standing a couple of inches shorter than her.

The girl gave her an incredulous look and then answered in her awful NY accent, "Yeah well, how am I supposed to know? Go check in the library or something!"

Faith raised an eyebrow and watched as the girl walked away, shaking her head. Sighing again, the brunette decided it couldn't hurt to at least check the library and she walked out the hallway and into the library building. There was a spot she knew Ren liked better than the others cause it was sort of out of reach and a lot quieter than the other places in the building. Walking around the various shelves of books she finally spotted her friend and walked up to the table in the back of the building, sitting down in a chair across from Ren.

"Hey," she smiled softly, looking at the brunette girl expectantly who was intently staring down at the schoolbook on the table.

"I take it Ruby spilled?" Ren asked, never looking up and her voice really held nothing of what she was feeling. She felt betrayed, hurt and disappointed, but she wasn't going to let Faith know that.

"Uh, yeah…more or less," Faith mumbled, still looking at her friend and wondering why the girl wasn't even looking up to meet her gaze. Ren had always been someone to make eye contact when they were having conversations, something that the older brunette enjoyed to no end. She couldn't help but love the other girl's eyes, the way they seemed to speak volumes even when Ren herself was reluctant to.

"What's wrong?" she finally asked, trying to get the other girl to look up, with no success.

"Nothing…just trying to catch up on Lit," Ren mumbled, turning a page and brushing some hair behind her ear, then after a short pause and without looking up she continued, "So…how's the 'being grounded' thing going? Must suck not to be able to go out, huh?"

Faith narrowed her eyes, cocked her head and looked at her friend in confusion, "Huh?" She wasn't stupid, she could tell sarcasm apart from curiosity.

And finally Ren looked up, staring right into the older brunette's brown eyes and sighed, "I saw you and Buffy together last night, while I was out with Ruby. I mean, if you didn't want to go out with me you could've just said so…you didn't have to make up a lie about being grounded."

Her mouth almost dropped open and the words were stuck in her throat. Ren actually believed she'd lied about being grounded? Faith shook her head and tried to find her brain somewhere in the jumbled mess of confused mind that was currently located in her head. She saw the younger girl look back down at her book, an almost inaudible scoff coming from her lips and Faith leaned forward, tipping Ren's chin up with her fingers.

"Hey…I would never lie to you. True, Buffy and I went out to dinner, but only 'cause mom went away overnight and didn't want us to starve. We only went out to dinner and headed right back home…trust me. Don't you think that if I hadn't been on house arrest I would've come by to nag you?"

The last statement brought a small smile to Ren's lips and Faith smiled at her, standing up and walking around the table to stand behind the younger girl. She wanted to make sure the girl couldn't just ignore her or run away when she made her request and she also didn't want the girl to think she was just being polite or something by asking. Faith leaned down, wrapping her arms around Ren's shoulders from behind and leaned her face so close that she could feel the other girl's nervousness.

"And I've got to ask you to do something for me…," Faith whispered into the brunette's ear, making her shiver slightly.

"Y…yeah?" Ren breathed out, cursing herself for not even getting her voice to function right. No matter how pissed or hurt she'd been, one smile and touch from Faith and she was butter that had met California sun.

"Well…my mom…she really wants to meet you, so she'll feel a lot better about me hanging out with you. So she asked me if you wanted to come over to dinner, tomorrow night?" Faith asked softly, hoping that Ren wasn't as terrified as she knew she would be in that position. A few seconds passed, silence surrounding them, and Faith tightened her hold on the girl, hoping to convince her eventually.

But then the younger brunette nodded slowly, mumbling a soft 'yeah' and Faith couldn't help but grin. She pressed her lips quickly against Ren's cheek and stood up, smiling at the brunette. Faith held out her hand, waiting for the other girl to take it so she could finally go eat.

"Come on, I'm starved! Not everyone can be satisfied by little words, like you."

Ren shook her head with a smile and took the girl's hand, following her wherever Faith would lead her. 'Cause she really couldn't have cared less about where they were going, as long as who she was going with would still be there.

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She smiled at the woman and tried not to let her discomfort show through. They were only half way through dinner and Ren felt like a Nazi War General at the Nuremberg Trials. As soon as she had set foot into Faith's house Buffy had acted just between the borders of hostile and scrutinizing. The blonde's eyes had been on her ever since they had sat down for dinner and the brunette girl felt that the way she held her fork would probably be noted in Buffy's mind to later bring up against her.

Ms. Summer's on the other hand was extremely nice, but the woman's constant asking questions about Ren's life made her fear of saying something wrong. Sure, her life usually seemed to the like of any parent she'd ever encountered, but this was different. This was Faith seeking approval from her mom of her friend and Ren didn't want the other girl to be scrutinized because of something she'd said. So far, however, the older woman had been nothing but delighted about anything Ren had told her and the brunette girl wasn't really afraid of messing up with Faith's mom anymore.

It just seemed that the woman was completely oblivious to Buffy, who was glaring daggers at Ren and to Faith who was so nervous she wasn't actually eating but pushing the food around on her plate. Holding back a sigh, the younger brunette was more than relieved when Ms. Summers stood up and picked up the plates. Ren wanted nothing more than to escape Buffy's harsh stare and got up as well, offering to help the woman.

"Oh no, you sit down. Buffy can help me with the dishes. Faith, you two can go if you want," Joyce smiled, ignoring a grumbling Buffy as the two brunettes stood up and went to Faith's room.

Buffy couldn't help but be completely pissed at her mom. Not only was she stuck doing dishes when it wasn't really her turn, but she also couldn't keep an eye on Faith and Ren. There was no way she was going to lose Faith.

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"Man, I thought we were never gonna get out of there," the girl exhaled and let herself fall down onto her bed.

"It wasn't THAT bad," the other girl replied, shrugging and tentatively sat down on the edge of the bed. Sure, it wasn't exactly the whole truth, it hadn't been bad, it had been one of the most nerve-wracking experiences in her life, but she wasn't going to share that.

"Come on, you can't tell me you didn't feel like a college applicant with my mom being the admission coordinator…not to mention Buffy, who should've won the Oscar for Best Ability to Look Completely Miserable," Faith turned onto her stomach and looked at her friend intently. She was more than glad to have dinner be over with, to finally get a chance to talk to Ren in private. The past week hadn't exactly been fun, being stuck inside the house with nothing to do. Sure, Buffy had been there most of the time, intent on making them spend quality time together, but Faith couldn't help feeling relieved that she wasn't grounded anymore.

"Uh…maybe. But still…," Ren trailed off, not knowing what she really meant to say. There was something she'd been thinking ever since Ruby and she had seen Buffy and Faith together at the restaurant. Something her mind had been telling her ever since and it had made her think.

"But still what?" the older girl asked, sitting up next to her friend and looking into the other girl's eyes questioningly.

Shaking her head, Ren brushed some strands of hair out of her eyes and sighed. Could she help that no matter how much she told herself that she had a chance with Faith, that her insecurities still kept telling her otherwise? She just wasn't used to this emotional mumbo-jumbo, playing mind games to win over someone's heart and such things. Not to mention that Ren really didn't want to play games with Faith, or anyone else for that matter. If the brunette wanted to be with here it'd have to be on her own free will, knowing all the consequences, all the facts, and most importantly, everything she would lose.

"Faith, I…," she started, closing her eyes for a second and taking a deep breath, "I think you should know something."

Nodding, the older girl moved closer, urging her on, but Ren wasn't so sure she wanted to do this. It hurt to think about it, it hurt to think about Buffy and Faith together. She'd never experienced much in the department of jealousy, but it had developed full-blown once she'd fallen for Faith. As much as it hurt, though, she didn't want to make her friend feel unhappy by possibly forcing her into anything.

"It's just that…ever since I saw you and Buffy together, at the restaurant…I've been thinking," she held up her hand, stopping Faith from saying anything and continued, "I mean, you two looked good together. You seemed so…happy. And thinking back, the times I saw you two together before I really knew you…every fool could see you were madly in love with her, Faith. I've never loved anyone like that, but…I'm pretty sure something like that doesn't fade from one moment to the other. I can tell she makes you happy, she makes you complete…Faith don't give happiness up to please me. Don't give that up to follow a whim that you might have. Don't lose something great just to be with me."

She looked away, not daring to even take a breath in fear of having the tears she could feel in the back of her throat spill over. Sure, everything she'd said had been the truth, but it didn't mean she wasn't hurting. But she also knew it was the right thing to do, to let Faith know what she would possibly lose if she decided to be with her. Not to mention that ancient saying "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you it's yours. If it doesn't, it never was", that her mom had somehow mentioned to her this morning.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder she reluctantly turned her head, looking at Faith with tears in her eyes. Soft fingers brushed away the tears, reminding Ren of the scene in her bedroom after the party, and then two strong arms wrapped around her, pulling her close. She moved so she was facing the older girl, wrapping her own arms around Faith's waist and rested her head on the girl's shoulder. The taller girl didn't speak, didn't know if there were any words to say after this…anything she should know about but didn't. So instead she wrapped her arms around Ren tighter and leaned back, letting them both fall onto the bed.

Faith could only sigh at the prospect of having to choose one of the two girls. She wasn't even sure if she could, she didn't know if she liked one more than the other. Sure, she did still have feelings for Buffy, that was undeniable, but there were also things she disliked very much about the blonde. And she also liked Ren, a lot. It was a new kind of feeling, nothing like she'd had with Buffy, and if Faith had to put a word on it she'd have to say it was innocent. The same history didn't exist between them that did between her and Buffy. Although Faith knew she might be able to forgive Buffy for cheating, she knew she'd never be able to forget and that made all the difference. Each of them would always fear something from the other, maybe a repeat performance, maybe not receiving that forgiveness…their love would be tainted.

Sighing, the brunette girl closed her eyes, never loosening her hold on the other girl. Why did love have to be so complicated? How was it possible for someone to love two people at once? Faith couldn't help but feel totally and utterly confused about the situation. Deciding that maybe she should go talk to Buffy later, Faith let all thoughts about the messed up circumstances slip from her mind and concentrated entirely on the girl in her arms.

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She cautiously set foot inside the dimly lit room, stepping around a pile of dirty laundry and stopped in the middle of the room to look at the girl lying on the bed. The blonde was lying on her stomach, clad in pastel colored pajamas, studying a fashion magazine. Upon hearing Faith enter her room she turned her head, moving her lips to what could've either been interpreted as a smile or a scowl. Sighing, the brunette walked up to the bed and looked down at her ex-girlfriend with an almost pleading look. She didn't want hostility, she just wanted some questions answered.

"Is she gone?" Buffy asked, her tone holding no interest at all and she turned her attention back to the magazine in front of her.

"Buffy…," Faith sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed, her back resting against the blonde's hip accidentally.

Closing her magazine with a sigh herself, Buffy craned her neck to look at the brunette. She moved closer just an inch, but it was definitely enough to make Faith's back press into her body comfortably. She wanted that body back, wanted it to be hers…but Buffy also knew that little slut had touched that body and she wanted nothing more than to scorch those touches from Faith's body with the heat of passion.

"Yes Faith?" she asked, trying to get the desire under control and not pounce on the girl right away.

"I just want to ask you something," the brunette mumbled, looking down at her hands that were entwined in her lap.

"Well, if it's got anything to do with who you should choose…don't bother. You know what I think of that girl…I just don't think you would be happy with her, Faith. Come on," Buffy scoffed, sitting up next to the brunette, "she's nowhere near your type. I know what you want babe…and it's not pure goodness. She doesn't look like the type that'd put out anytime soon, how ya gonna survive that Faith?"

When the brunette didn't respond, Buffy figured she'd had her hooked and moved in front of Faith, sitting on her lap with her legs on either side of Faith. Wrapping her arms around the younger girl's neck, she smiled. But it wasn't a smile of happiness or love, it was purely seductive and Faith knew that. Yet she didn't move or say anything, somehow feeling too confused and scared to do anything but sit and stare.

"Faith honey…you know we were made for each other. Don't tell me you've forgotten how I make you feel, how we feel with each other. This is perfection Faith…there's nothing that girl could ever have on me, nothing she could offer you that I haven't already given you."

Scoffing the brunette leaned away from Buffy as the blonde tried to kiss her, stopping the girl by pushing her farther away, "Buffy…I can't do this now. I told you I need time to think about things, time to choose. And I think you've made your point."

Faith stood up, slowly which surprised Buffy as she was put down gently and the brunette walked towards the door. The blonde bit her lip, hoping she hadn't actually made things worse for herself by what she had just done.

"What'd you wanna ask me?" she asked softly, watching intently as Faith turning around and smiled painfully.

"Doesn't matter now. 'Night Buffy."

And with that Faith left the room, leaving a worried and kind of pissed blonde behind.

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Music was playing softly in the background, and for once it was one of her mind-numbing Rock albums, but some R&B stuff Ren had told her to listen to. It was definitely nice for soul-searching and thinking about emotional turmoil. But that didn't mean Faith wouldn't have appreciated some loud music that sent the picture frames on her dresser falling over.

Sighing she brought her arms under her head, staring up at the ceiling as if it held the answers to all her problems. As if anyone could actually help her with this mess she was in. Two wonderful women that both loved her and that she loved back…and she couldn't decide which one she wanted to be with. She knew that between her and Buffy there were many things wrong, but their love would never, ever die. There at least always be a little bit left, but that didn't mean they couldn't be really good friends. People love their friends, there was nothing wrong with that. Faith wasn't sure that if she chose Buffy she could ever feel completely okay again around the blonde. The thing with Donnie had hurt her, more than anything had ever hurt her before. Buffy had broken promises, had lied to her…she had broken Faith's trust and that was something to hurt any relationship, no matter how great the love. There was a history with them that might just come back to haunt them any time someone screwed up. Love shouldn't be about getting even, it should be about the other person.

Which brought her to Ren. She didn't have a history with the other girl. They'd become good friends and out of that more had developed. Something that had been missing with Buffy; with Buffy they'd acted like puppies in heat from the first date on. And someone had once told her that every relationship should develop out of a good friendship…

something Faith had come to appreciate more and more. Not to mention that Ren was fun and smart, she'd even gotten Faith to do her homework and actually enjoy school. Buffy had never once helped her with homework or encouraged her to get good grades; she'd just declared Faith a 'bad girl' and that was all she seemed to expect from her. Though what Buffy had said was probably true, Ren didn't act like a horny teenager on Viagra, but it wasn't like she was a chaste nun or something. And to her own surprise Faith found the thought of working up to that next step in a relationship endearing, it would just make it all the more special. And then there was that part where Ren actually liked all those things about her that Buffy despised. Like the way Faith would know all the words to songs and sing along to them, something Buffy had told her numerous times was annoying as hell, but that Ren found terribly cute.

Faith closed her eyes, imagining what it'd be like with either one of the two girls; to be with them, to love and be loved back. She was hoping for an epiphany, continuously going over the facts in her head. There was no way this could go on any longer, she had to make a decision, had to choose and make the right decision in the process. Sighing again Faith thought about all her arguments once again, there had to be an answer somewhere.

And when Faith finally fell asleep, after a long time of thinking about it, the answer became perfectly clear in her head.

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Nervously she fidgeted in front of the door and took a deep breath. She knew that if she didn't do this now she'd probably chicken out later. As soon as she'd woken up, the answer still making perfect sense in her mind, she'd decided to go tell her that she wanted to be with her. As simple as that, just her stomach wasn't thinking so, making her feel more nauseous than ever before. She'd managed to at least get dressed and brush her teeth before making her move, she'd been way too anxious to eat breakfast or anything else. Not to mention that she was horrible afraid she'd throw up anything she'd eat while in the middle of telling the girl she loved her.

She raised her fist, slowly knocking on the wood of the door and took a deep breath that was meant to calm her. It was kind of early, early for her anyway, but she just couldn't wait with this any longer. A muffled 'come in' snapped her out of her thoughts and Faith opened the door, taking another deep breath as she stepped into the room. Shutting the door behind her she looked up into a set of beautiful eyes and smiled.

Faith walked over to the girl who was looking at her questioningly, stopping any questions by trailing her index finger gently across soft lips and finally took the girl's hand in hers. She smiled again, trying to gather the courage to say what was on her mind.

"I…I…I want to be with you…if…if you want that…," she looked into those deep eyes, hoping that after all she'd gone through she wouldn't be rejected now. During this whole dilemma about choosing she'd made some stupid moves of her own and she hoped they wouldn't impact the outcome of this now.

"Y…yeah…I'd love that, Faith," the girl whispered back, staring into Faith's brown eyes, totally awed at what was going on. She couldn't say she hadn't dreamt of this moment, hadn't wished it to come true. "But…wha…what about…," she started, knowing that it was probably a bad move to bring it up, but she just wanted to be sure she was the one.

"Shh…there's only you," Faith whispered back, her hands moving to cup the girl's face and she smiled softly before leaning in, pressing her lips gently against the other girl's. She opened her eyes and looked back into those eyes, brushing some hair out of her lover's face and said the four words the girl had been wanting to hear for the longest time, "I love you, Ren."

The girl smiled, a laugh escaping her lips as she wrapped her arms around the taller girl's waist, pulling her as close as possible and whispered back, "I love you too, Faith."

And smiling back was all Faith could do not to burst into tears of happiness or something else showing some sign of weakness, so instead she wrapped her arms around the other girl tightly, hoping to never have to let go.

_The End_


End file.
